PwC partners up with Alarga to attract talents with cross cultural skills and mindset.  “Access to such talent is essential to success”, says leading management professor.

Managing Director of Alarga, Dilek Ayhan, believes it is natural that PwC is Alarga’s first partner in the professional services industry.

“PwC has realised that the battle for talent with intercultural skills and mindset will become more intense. They see the long term competitive advantage and therefore it seems natural that the company will be our first partner in auditing and advisory”, says Ayhan.
Talent shortage inhibits growth worldwide

The world’s CEOs see the lack of talent as one of the greatest threats to growth, according to PwC’s Global CEO Survey 2012.

“To stay in front, we need to be able to challenge established ways of thinking. Alarga can help us find talent that represents new ideas, different experiences and unique perspectives,” says Håvard S. Abrahamsen, CEO of PwC in Norway.

Six out of ten global executives surveyed said that winning the battle for the right talent is critical to their business.

“Alarga adds a new and important element in the fight for the best talent and offer a talent base that is essential for growth and development”, says Ayhan.

Norway needs talent
Professor Torger Reve of BI Norwegian Business School has led the recently published research project A knowledge-based Norway.

“That Norway has to be attractive for talent if we are to succeed as a nation of business, is a main conclusion in the research. The same applies at the corporate level, but then we need quality, depth and breadth in the skills that are recruited,” says Reve.

PwC has offices in 158 countries and is represented in 36 Norwegian locations.

“As the world’s largest professional services firm, the success of PwC depends on the competence of the employees. We look forward to working with Alarga”, says Abrahamsen.

Natural cooperation
Other Alarga partners include Norwegian companies Orkla, DNB, Aker Solutions, Telenor, Statkraft and Hafslund.

“We know PwC as an accomplished and innovative company with strong growth. We are very pleased to have PwC on the Alarga Partner team”, says chairman of Alarga, Erik Villum.

PwC in brief
PwC firms help organisations and individuals create the value they’re looking for. We’re a network of firms in 158 countries with close to 169,000 people committed to delivering quality in assurance, tax and advisory services.

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