Berit Svendsen (born 7 April 1963) is a Norwegian engineer and

business executive A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations ...

. As of September 2015, she is a vice president of the

Telenor Group Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...

and head of Telenor Norway. 4 September 2018 she resigned from both positions after longer internal turmoil in the Telenor Group, both positions held since 20 September 2011.

Biography

Born on 7 April 1963 in Frederikstad, Svendsen grew up in Kråkerøy, an island in the south-east of Norway. After demonstrating interest in mathematics and physics at high school, in 1983 she went to

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

to spend five years studying engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology where she earned an MSc in electronics. She completed her education in 1995 with a master's degree in technology management from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in collaboration with the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. In 1988, she joined Telenor as a research scientist, attracted by the potential of telecommunications and the internet. After completing her masters at MIT in Boston, Massachusetts, she was promoted first to head of department and later to head of division for data services at Telenor Nett. In 1999, she was given special responsibility for Telenor's Fixed-Mobile Convergence project which quickly led to her appointment in 2000 as technology director for all of Telenor's departments, a post she held for the next five years. In 2005, she became Vice President and Head of Telenor Nordic Fixed. From 2002 to 2007, Svendsen was a member of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

's ISTAG, an advisory group on information society technologies. In 2008, she spent a short period as CEO of

Conax Conax develops television encryption, conditional access and content security for digital television. Conax provide CAS technology to pay TV operators in 85 countries. The company has offices in Norway (headquarters), Russia, Germany, Brazil, t ...

which at the time was owned by Telenor. She returned to Telenor in September 2011 as Executive Vice President Telenor Group and CEO of Telenor Norway, a position she continues to hold. Svendsen also serves on the boards of the banking and financial services group

DNB Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...

(since 2011) and (since 2007) EMGS which provides technical support to oil and gas companies.

Personal life

Svendsen is married to Erik Østbye (who also works at Telenor), and has two adopted children from Chile. Her interests include cooking (especially Thai dishes), swimming in the sea,

water aerobics Water aerobics (waterobics, aquarobics, aquatic fitness, aquafitness, aquafit) is the performance of aerobic exercise in water such as in a swimming pool. It is done mostly vertically and without swimming typically in waist deep or deeper water. W ...

, reading and history. She enjoys relaxing in her summerhouse on one of the

Hvaler Hvaler is a municipality that is a group of islands in the southern part of Viken County, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Skjærhalden, on the island of Kirkeøy. The only police station in the municipa ...

islands.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Svendsen, Berit 1963 births Living people People from Fredrikstad Norwegian business executives Norwegian women business executives Norwegian engineers 21st-century Norwegian businesswomen 21st-century Norwegian businesspeople