Torstein Hagen (born 1943) is a Norwegian billionaire businessman, and the founder and chairman of

Viking Cruises Viking (formerly Viking Cruises) is a cruise line providing river, ocean, and expedition cruises. Its operating headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland,Adam H. Graham"The Rising Tide: How Viking Changed Cruising" '' Departures'', 21 November 201 ...

Early life and education

Hagen was born and raised in Norway.Fran Golden
"Perfect Examples,"
'' Porthole Cruise Magazine'', August 21, 2017. He earned a degree in physics at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, where he completed his master thesis on

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

, won a Fulbright grant to study in the United States, and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1968.

Career

Early years in cruise industry (1974-96)

Hagen was a consultant, and later partner, for McKinsey & Company in Europe, helping to bring

Holland America Line Holland America Line is an American-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operate ...

back from near-bankruptcy in 1974.Arnie Weissmann
"Rolling on the rivers,"
'' Travel Weekly'', April 2, 2013. In 1976, he became CEO of

Bergen Steamship Company The Bergen Steamship Company ( no, Bergenske Dampskibsselskab) (BDS), was founded in 1851 by Michael Krohn to operate a shipping service between the Norwegian ports of Bergen, Stavanger, and Kristiansand and the German port of Hamburg with the pad ...

(Bergenske Dampskibsselskab), and then became CEO of

Royal Viking Line The Royal Viking Line was an upmarket cruise line that operated from 1972 until 1998. The company was the brain child of Warren Titus and had its headquarters at One Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. History The First Ships Each of the lin ...

from 1980 to 1984. After a failed take-over bid, he had to resign in 1984. He joined the board of Holland America Line in 1985, and later served on the board of Kloster Cruise. In the early 1990s, he acquired a 27% stake in

Nedlloyd Nedlloyd was a Dutch shipping company, formed in 1970 as the result of a merger of several shipping lines: *Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland (SMN) *Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd (KRL) *Koninklijke Java-China-Paketvaart-Lijnen (KJCPL) *Vereen ...

, a Rotterdam-based shipping company, becoming the biggest shareholder. He sold his shares several years later at a loss.

Viking Cruises (1997-present)

In 1997, Hagen founded Viking River Cruises with the purchase of four river ships, launching the company with four Russian river cruises. Viking serves wealthy American retirees and has more than 70 river

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as ...

s, which mainly navigate the major

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an waterways. In May 2013, the company announced plans to start an ocean cruise division, and changed its name to Viking Cruises.Erica Silverstein
"Viking Ocean Cruises Takes Delivery of New Cruise Ship,"
Cruise Critic, September 26, 2017. Its first ocean cruise was launched in 2015. As of 2016, Hagen has disposed of 23% of Viking Cruises to

TPG Capital TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth c ...

and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for total of $672 million. As of 2017, the company has a fleet of over 60 vessels, and four ocean going ships. At the beginning of 2020, Hagen announced that Viking would begin offering expedition tours. The first tour would be exploring

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

and the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...

of North America in January 2022 with a second tour to begin in August 2022 sailing to Antarctica and the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

. The inauguration for the company’s first custom vessel is planned for August 2022.

Personal life

Hagen is divorced with two children, and lives in Lucerne, Switzerland. His daughter Karine Hagen works for Viking River Cruises.

References

External links

Torstein Hagen
at

Bloomberg.com Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Tele ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagen, Torstein 1943 births Living people Norwegian billionaires Norwegian expatriates in Switzerland Norwegian Institute of Technology alumni Harvard Business School alumni Norwegian chief executives McKinsey & Company people