Cermaq starts co-operation with Alarga

(Oslo 2011.05.30) Cermaq will be Alarga’s first partner within the aquaculture sector. Alarga is engaged in enhancing the competitive advantages of Norwegian businesses through increasing companies’ intercultural competence.

- In Cermaq we see an increasing need to attract talents with a diversified approach in terms of languages, cultural understanding and insight in international business.

We are excited about the cooperation with Alarga, says CEO of Cermaq, Geir Isaksen.

Given co-operation

General manager of Alarga, Dilek Ayhan, says there is no coincidence in Cermaq being the first company within aquaculture on the list of influential business communities to cooperate with Alarga.

- Cermaq has understood it pays off to attract talents with a multicultural background. They look for long term competitive advantages, and it is therefore natural that the company becomes our first partner within aquaculture, says Ayhan.

Alarga already cooperates with key Norwegian companies as Orkla, DnB NOR, Telenor, Yara and Statkraft.

­- Cermaq is a very exciting and innovative company. We are very content with having this leading company within aquaculture enter our team of partners, says Chairman of Alarga, Erik Villum.

Designing, Leading and Building World Class Management Teams

 in TRONDHEIM on 29 & 30 March 2011. This workshop, led by Laura Barker Morse, human resource professional & former Human Capital Partner at Atlas Venture, and Ken Morse, serial entrepreneur and Founding Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center is tailored to the needs of innovative, ambitious Norwegian companies and aims to teach core skills of entrepreneurship and global thinking to address skills exchange, mindset and significantly raise ambition within the business.

For more information visit: http://www.entrepreneurship-norway.com

On January 5th Dilek Ayhan, Managing director of Alarga, participated as an Elevator Pitch Judge at the ‘Global Sales Strategies for Ambitious Business Executives’ workshop in Trondheim led by Ken(neth) Morse, Founding Managing Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center, Cambridge, MA, USA. It was a high quality seminar and workshop targeting Entrepreneurs, CEOs and senior sales executives from innovative, fast-growing companies, featuring case studies and lectures, interactive discussions, participants presentations, “hands-on” exercises, and the opportunity to practice “elevator sales pitches” to potential customers.

From left: Gisle Østereng, Ken Morse and Dilek Ayhan.

This year’s winners (from left …):
Vaishali Lara Kathuria, assigned to Yara
Veysel Ince, assigned to law firm Thommessen
Tom Chottayil Varghese, assigned to Telenor
Vu Duy Pham, assigned to Statkraft
Rony Solaiman, assigned to law firm Selmer
Manveer Singh Sidhu, assigned to Orkla
Visnu Manoharan, assigned to Hafslund
Javad Mushtaq, assigned to DnB NOR

Besides receiving NOK 100,000 for a two-year master’s programme, the scholarship holders will be assigned to one of Alarga’s partner companies and provided with a professional mentor who will follow them through the programme. As part of the scholarship arrangement, most of the candidates will do their master’s thesis together with the partner company.

Award ceremony
The scholarship award ceremony was held in the Small Hall of Oslo Concert Hall. In addition to speeches by Thommessen’s chairman Kim Dobrowen and Alarga’s chairman Erik Villum, a duo made up of Matias Jentoft and Jakob Dingstad from the Barratt Due Institute of Music put a nice touch to the event.

The ceremony inspired HRM Crown Prince Haakon to give a brief speech congratulating the scholarship recipients and praising Alarga for its work. “An important element in being good at succeeding is having the opportunity to play ball with the best”, said the Crown Prince.

After the awards, HRM Crown Prince Haakon met with the scholarship holders in the green room.

Alarga’s managing director Dilek Ayhan is indeed pleased to have DnB NOR on board, and believes the partnership signals a new direction in Norwegian business and industry.

”There has been surging demand the past year from companies and sectors seeking intercultural expertise. The fact that Norway’s largest financial enterprise has chosen to partner with us is a clear signal, I believe, that Alarga has succeeded in becoming Norway’s foremost talent factory for promoting top students with a background in other cultures and languages”, says Ayhan.

Alarga’s mission is to bring major Norwegian companies operating in the global market together with top students with a multicultural background. The organisation has so far picked out 31 students for its partner companies.

Intercultural possibilities

“DnB NOR will be a bank for all of Norway, and we also have many international customers. Recruiting intercultural expertise is therefore important for us”, says DnB NOR’s information director Thomas Midteide.

“Today, more than half a million people with a multicultural background live in Norway, and that number is rising. DnB NOR therefore deems it important to attract top students with a background in other cultures and languages, and it is essential for us to have such knowledge with regard to both service and sales”, says Midteide.  

And Midteide is convinced that securing such expertise will give DnB NOR a competitive edge.

“We make our living understanding the customer’s needs. And the customer base is far from as homogeneous as it once was. Consequently, we need the best talents with the widest possible insight and knowledge of multicultural matters. Having resources that both master different languages and have solid business know-how is also a competitive advantage”, says Midteide. 

About DnB NOR
DnB NOR is Norway’s largest financial conglomerate, with NOK 2,076 billion in total assets. The group includes solid brands like DnB NOR, Vital, Nordlandsbanken, Cresco and Postbanken.  

Website: www.dnbnor.no  

Alarga has in a short time grown into an attractive partner for Norwegian businesses. And Ayhan is indeed thrilled at the interest shown by Norway’s Crown Prince.

“We are extremely proud of HRM Crown Prince Haakon’s desire to support the scholarship programme. The Crown Prince has shown a keen interest in Norwegian business and industry for a long time. Through his support to Alarga, he has shown the importance of boosting the competitiveness of Norwegian companies in an increasingly global arena”, says Dilek Ayhan.

This year’s scholarship award is the fourth in a row for Alarga, which to date has selected 23 students for its scholarship programme, all with top grades and a multicultural family background. Alarga’s new partner, law firm Thommessen, will be hosting this year’s ceremony.

Dilek Ayhan says the scholarship arrangement has already helped give Norwegian business a competitive boost.

“More and more companies are interested in accessing our pool of students. We see this particularly through the attention given the scholarship arrangement. This year we’ve had to turn down several companies wanting to join the programme”, says Ayhan. 

Besides receiving NOK 100,000 for a two-year master’s programme, the scholarship holders will be assigned to one of Alarga’s partner companies and provided with a professional mentor who will follow them through the programme. As part of the scholarship arrangement, most of the candidates will do their master’s thesis together with the partner company.

The Alarga Scholarship was established in 2007 and is awarded top students with a family background from East Europe, Asia (including Turkey), Africa and South and Central America. The scholarship is awarded to students with high scholastic achievement, social commitment and language proficiency.

The Alarga Scholarship award ceremony for 2010 will be held at Oslo Concert Hall on 9 June, 1:00 PM.

Law firm Selmer will be Alarga’s second legal partner. Alarga, a nonprofit organisation, already has law firm Thommessen and other leading companies like Orkla, Yara, Telenor and Statkraft among its partners.

Thinking intercultural
Alarga’s managing director Dilek Ayhan is happy to have Selmer on board, and she is very glad that more and more Norwegian legal firms now want to attract top students with a multicultural background.

“Norwegian companies need to boost their intercultural expertise in order to succeed in today’s globalised labour market. Selmer has understood this,” says Ayhan. 

“Selmer gets the brightest brains from its own backyard: law students who, in addition to graduating with top honours, are multilingual and have a unique, international mindset.”

Alarga’s mission is to boost the competitiveness of Norwegian businesses by enhancing their intercultural competence. To date, the organisation has selected 23 top students with a multicultural background for its partner enterprises, Norway’s leading companies in their respective fields.    

Fresh, multicultural thinking
“In many of our assignments, we see the growing importance of widening our international perspective. We encounter more and more customers who expect a deeper understanding of culture and international traditions extending beyond our legal expertise. This includes both Norwegian and international customers,” says Steinar ter Jung, managing director of law firm Selmer.  

Selmer is one of Norway’s largest legal firms, with 115 lawyers and 10 financial advisers. The firm has a number of foreign and domestic key accounts including listed companies, investment banks and the public sector.

About Selmer
Selmer is one of Norway’s leading business law firms and the only one with financial analysis and transaction support as a separate business area.

Selmer provides advisory services in numerous major, high-profile transactions and handles many of the largest bankruptcy estates. Selmer is three-time winner of the International Financial Law Review’s “Law Firm of The Year” award.

Website: www.selmer.no

Natural collaboration
It is no coincidence that Thommessen is the first law firm to join the list of major business players partnering with Alarga.

“Thommessen understands that it pays to hire talented people with intercultural backgrounds. The firm sees the competitive payoff in the long-term, hence it is only natural for them to become our first business partner in the legal profession,” says Alarga’s managing director Dilek Ayhan.

Alarga’s mission is to boost the competitiveness of Norwegian businesses by enhancing their intercultural expertise. To date, the organisation has selected 23 top students with intercultural backgrounds for its partner enterprises which comprise of Norway’s leading companies in their respective fields.

“In Thommessen we see a growing need to recruit talent with a broad approach to both language and cultural appreciation. We have a growing international customer base, which makes this competence important to us,” says Kai Thøgersen, Thommessen’s managing partner. He says the growing proportion of intercultural law students at Norway’s universities is an important reason for partnering with Alarga.

“Alarga offers a talent base that widens our access to the top brains. The partnership will be an important resource for us moving forward,” Mr Thøgersen said.  

The latest figures from the University of Oslo show that its law school, along with its mathematics and science departments, has the highest increase of students with intercultural backgrounds.

“Thommessen is an exciting and innovative firm, and we are extremely pleased to have this leading legal enterprise on our team,” says Erik Villum, Alarga’s board chairman.

Thommessen is one of Norway’s top commercial law firms, with offices in Oslo, Bergen and London. Thommessen has 270 employees, of which 175 are associates or senior associates. Thommessen has reaped wide acclaim for the firm’s expertise in all areas of commercial law and has received distinctions and top placings in a number of international and national rankings of legal firms.  

Website: www.thommessen.no

 Having Hafslund onboard has significantly strengthened Alarga’s position in the energy sector.

Profitable partnership
Alarga’s general manager Dilek Ayhan says there is major business potential for both parties.

“Today, more than half a million people with a multicultural background live in Norway. And that number is rising. A forward-looking company like Hafslund obviously sees a need to master different languages and cultures in its business activities”, says Dilek Ayhan.

Alarga’s mission is to give Norwegian businesses a stronger edge by boosting their intercultural expertise.  The organisation has so far picked out 23 top students with a multicultural background for its partner companies, all of them among Norway’s leading enterprises in their fields. 

“Our customers have different backgrounds, and we want our organisation’s diversity to reflect this. In our customer communication, we greatly benefit form having staff members with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Our call centre currently has people who speak 15 different languages, making it easier for new customer groups to have contact with us. We want to maintain and increase this service moving forward. But we see a major benefit in further enhancing our multicultural expertise also in other areas of the company”, says Tove Elisabeth Pettersen, senior vice president at Shared Services Hafslund.

“Alarga’s solid expertise combined with a broad international perspective, makes the organisation’s scholarship holders a vital resource in communicating with our multicultural base”, says Pettersen.

“We are thrilled to have one of Scandinavia’s largest energy companies on our partner team. It is important for us to offer the best and most exciting jobs to our scholarship holders. Hafslund is therefore an important resource for Alarga”, says Alarga’s board chairman Erik Villum.

About Hafslund
Hafslund ASA is a Norwegian company quoted on the Oslo Stock Exchange and is one of the largest listed power conglomerates in the Nordic region. Hafslund is Norway’s largest grid owner, electricity sales company and supplier of district heating, a major producer of renewable energy and a significant provider of telecom services.

Website: www.hafslund.no

Jørgen Kildahl

“Statkraft is working on managing and developing resources in an eco-friendly way,” says Statkraft’s CEO Jørgen Kildahl. “Waste or inadequate utilisation of resources is not only an economic or environmental loss, but a violation of our values. Alarga pointed out a human resource we failed to nurture adequately: Norwegian youth with a different cultural background.”

Statkraft’s ambition is to be a world leader in renewable energy. Recently, the company’s new osmosis power plant made the headlines worldwide. The company has developed a technology making it possible to exploit the energy arising when freshwater meets saltwater.

The prototype produces only enough energy to brew a couple of cups of coffee. But the company has big ambitions. By 2015 they aim to build an osmosis plant that can produce 25 megawatts, enough to supply a small city with energy.

“We make our living producing knowledge and turning it into value,” says Kildahl. “This is one of many projects we could not have realised without getting expertise and know-how from beyond Norway’s borders.”

Friction energy

The osmosis power plant is a fascinating example of how energy is created when different nuances of the same substance meet. When saltwater meets freshwater, energy is created; when one culture meets another, the same thing happens. But energy can take on different forms, and when cultures collide, friction may arise creating energy with a tragic outcome at times. The secret is to control it – use it to make a couple of cups of coffee rather than fighting each other. 

“Friction is important, it is energy,” says HR director Beate Hamre Deck. “It’s about cultivating the differences and promoting the similarities. We want to nurture our basic values and at the same time foster heterogeneity in order to get the best from other cultures.”

HR direktør Beate Hamre Deck og stipenidiat Aslanbek Sjamsutdinov

In 2008 Statkraft Norge had 38 employees with immigrant backgrounds (first-generation Norwegians or Norwegians with parents from other nations). But that figure grew in 2009. The entire Statkraft enterprise now has 49 different nationalities, 20 different nationalities at the Dusseldorf office alone. So we are a company that once had a very uniform Norwegian profile, but is now about to become international also regarding our employees’ origins.”

Distinctively Norwegian

In people’s minds, Statkraft is still a very Norwegian company with several uniquely Norwegian characteristics that are important to its success, though not so easy to export.

“One of those Norwegian characteristics is our egalitarianism,” says Deck. “The Scandinavian model has little hierarchy and is very transparent. It stands in contrast to the way companies are run in many of the countries in which we operate. Sometimes we have to proceed with tiny steps. In this process, Alarga can help demystify.”

These values, along with the company’s enduring ‘green’ profile, have made Statkraft an attractive place of employment for newly qualified people the world over.

“At a recruitment fair in Budapest recently, our little stand was overshadowed by major international giants like Nestlé and Siemens, yet many students still came to us because we offer work that gives meaning in a world threatened by environmental issues,” says Deck.

Remarkably competent

“Where our green profile and culture for respect and equality gives meaning for them, the heterogeneity and diversity gives meaning for us,” says Kildahl, adding: “But our strategy is not simply a matter of value. It also yields a commercial dividend. Good decisions must be sound in many dimensions, and the same applies to hiring. So when we seek less homogeneity in the organisation, it is also a commercial matter. Through Alarga and in our international commitments, we have gotten candidates that I can only describe as remarkably competent. Alarga has provided us with well-qualified, motivated and multiculturally diverse scholarship holders,” he says in closing.