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Håkon Haugli

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Håkon Haugli
Håkon Haugli
BornMay 21, 1969 (age 57)
Oslo, Norway
NationalityNorwegian
EducationUniversity of Oslo (cand.mag., cand.jur.)
OccupationBusiness executive, former politician
CompanyInnovation Norway
TitleChief executive officer

Håkon Haugli (born May 21, 1969) is a Norwegian business executive and former Labour Party politician who has been chief executive officer of Innovation Norway, the Norwegian state's agency for business development, innovation and export promotion, since May 2019.[1][2] Before joining the agency he spent five years as managing director of Abelia, the association for knowledge and technology companies within the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO).[3]

Haugli trained as a lawyer at the University of Oslo and worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the youth exchange organisation Youth For Understanding, the consultancy ISCO Group, McKinsey & Company and the insurer Gjensidige before entering national politics.[4] From October 1, 2009, to September 30, 2013, he sat in the Storting for Oslo as a permanent substitute for Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, serving on the standing committees for local government and for health. Throughout that term he was a member of Norway's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), where in March 2012 he was elected the assembly's first rapporteur on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.[4][5]

Haugli is openly gay. Before and during his parliamentary career he led the Labour Party's network for gay and lesbian members, and in 2011 the Norwegian website Gaysir ranked him first on its annual list of the most influential gay people in Norway.[1][6] As head of Innovation Norway he has overseen the agency through the COVID-19 pandemic, when its financing to business peaked at NOK 12.5 billion in 2020, and through its later role as administrator of the government's green industrial loan scheme.[7][8] In November 2026 the agency's board announced that he would take leave from January 11 to April 16, 2027, to attend the senior leadership course at the Norwegian Defence University College, with division director Tina Stiegler serving as acting chief executive in the meantime.[9]

Early life and education

Haugli was born in Oslo on May 21, 1969. He is the son of Håvard Haugli (1934 to 2009), a civil engineer, and Sigrun Anne Olsen (born 1937), who worked in customer service.[4]

According to the biography he supplied to the Storting, Haugli attended Løkenåsen lower secondary school from 1982 to 1985 and then Lambertseter upper secondary school, where he followed the general academic programme from 1985 to 1987. In 1986 he spent time as an exchange student at Belmont High School in Geelong, Australia. He completed his secondary education with the International Baccalaureate at Berg upper secondary school in Oslo between 1987 and 1989.[4]

He studied at the University of Oslo from 1990, taking a cand.mag. degree in 1994 that combined the second part of the law programme with introductory courses in the history of ideas and semester courses in philosophy of life and ethics. He completed the professional law degree, cand.jur., in 1997.[4] Store norske leksikon describes him as a trained jurist.[1]

His involvement with youth exchange began during his studies. He sat on the board of Youth For Understanding Norway from 1990 to 1993 and chaired it from 1993 to 1997. He was then a member of the international advisory council of Youth For Understanding, Inc. from 1996 to 2000, and of European Educational Exchanges (EEE-YFU) from 2000 to 2003. He also sat on the board of the exchange foundation Stiftelsen Atlantis ungdomsutveksling from 1995 to 1997.[4]

Career

Foreign ministry and exchange work (1994 to 1998)

Haugli's first jobs were at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he worked as an information officer in 1994 and as a first secretary in 1995. From 1997 to 1998 he was an international program management specialist at Youth For Understanding.[4]

Consulting: ISCO Group and McKinsey (1998 to 2006)

In 1998 Haugli joined the consultancy ISCO Group as an adviser and stayed until 2001. He then moved to McKinsey & Company, where he held the post of manager of professional development from 2001 to 2006.[4] His later employers have summarised this period as work in the consultancies McKinsey and ISCO Group.[3][1]

Gjensidige (2006 to 2009)

Haugli moved into financial services in 2006, when he became sales director at Gjensidige Pensjon og Sparing, the pensions and savings arm of the insurer Gjensidige. In 2008 he became head of claims settlement and personal customer service at Gjensidige Forsikring, the post he held when he entered the Storting in 2009.[4][1] When Abelia announced his appointment in 2014 it described his Gjensidige career as including posts as HR director, sales director and director of claims settlement and customer service.[10]

Local politics and party work

Haugli's political activity long predates his time in parliament. He sat on the Oslo county board of the Workers' Youth League (AUF) from 1992 to 1993 and on the board of the Oslo Social Democratic Student Association from 1994 to 1996. He was a board member of the St. Hanshaugen branch of the Labour Party from 1996 to 1997 and led the Grønland, Tøyen and Gamlebyen branch from 2003 to 2004. He became a member of the Oslo Labour Party's council of representatives in 2003 and sat on the board of Oslo Arbeidersamfunn from 2004 to 2007.[4]

In municipal politics he was a deputy member of the Oslo City Council from 1995 to 1997 and a full member from 2007 to 2011.[4][1] In 2007 and 2008 he was a member of Mannspanelet (the Men's Panel), which his Storting biography lists among his public appointments.[4]

He also led the Labour Party's group for gay and lesbian social democrats, Homofile og lesbiske sosialdemokrater. The Storting biography dates his leadership from 2006, while Store norske leksikon gives the period as 2005 to 2013 and notes that the group was renamed Homonettverket (the Gay Network) in 2009.[4][1]

Storting (2009 to 2013)

At the 2009 Norwegian parliamentary election Haugli was elected first substitute for Oslo on the Labour list. Because the first name on that list, Jens Stoltenberg, was serving as prime minister and could not sit in the chamber, Haugli met as a permanent representative in Stoltenberg's place for the whole term, from October 1, 2009, to September 30, 2013.[4]

He was a member of the Standing Committee on Local Government and Public Administration from October 20, 2009, to March 22, 2013. He then moved to the Standing Committee on Health and Care Services, becoming its second vice chair on April 9, 2013, a post he held until the end of the term. From March 20, 2013, he also sat on the board of the Labour Party's parliamentary group.[4] In 2011 he was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.[4]

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

From October 22, 2009, to September 30, 2013, Haugli was one of the Storting's delegates to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.[4] In January 2012 the assembly's Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination decided to create the post of general rapporteur on the rights of LGBT people. On March 20, 2012, the committee elected Haugli unanimously as the first holder of the post. The committee's chair, the Swedish parliamentarian Tina Acketoft, said the full committee would stand behind him.[5]

On his election Haugli said: "In Europe, human rights violations against LGBT people are numerous and serious," and "This is about basic human rights, not special rights." He listed freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to family life and freedom from violence and discrimination as rights that could not be taken for granted by LGBT people in Europe. The Storting reported that his main tasks would be following up the assembly's earlier resolutions on sexual orientation and gender identity, and acting as a link between the assembly and national parliaments, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights and Committee of Ministers, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Parliament and United Nations bodies.[5]

On Thursday, June 27, 2013, Haugli presented his report on discrimination against LGBT people to the assembly. It was the first report of its kind and put LGBT rights back on the Council of Europe's agenda for the first time since 2010. The resolution and the accompanying recommendation to the Committee of Ministers were adopted by a two-thirds majority. The report found that several European countries had recently passed laws that discriminated against LGBT people, including the Russian law banning what it called "propaganda for non-traditional sexual orientation", and that similar legislation had been proposed elsewhere. The Storting reported that the adopted resolution was a signal to the authorities of countries including Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Lithuania.[11] Presenting the report, Haugli said that forcing LGBT people into silence and invisibility was "not compatible with membership of the Council of Europe", and that it was unacceptable for politicians and officials to use hate rhetoric and knowingly pass legislation that broke with the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights.[11]

Abelia (2014 to 2019)

On February 3, 2014, Abelia, NHO's association for knowledge and technology companies, announced Haugli as its new managing director, with effect from March 1, 2014. The association's board chair, Ragnar Kårhus, said the board had wanted a leader with a strong interest in public affairs and pointed to Haugli's experience in both private business and politics.[10]

Haugli said at the time that he had followed Abelia "with great interest from when it was a paper sketch in 2001", and set out the challenges he expected the association to address: tougher international competition and fewer people in work for each pensioner. He said that high-quality Norwegian education and research and good conditions for business were important, and that Abelia would continue to argue for "more knowledge". He also said he wanted Abelia to own and develop the concept of knowledge management (kunnskapsledelse) in both the public and private sectors.[10]

He led Abelia until 2019.[1][3] In the last two years of that period he also sat on the jury of Ledertalentene, the business newspaper E24's annual ranking of young leadership talent.[12]

Innovation Norway (2019 to present)

Appointment

Innovation Norway advertised the post of chief executive on March 1, 2019, after Anita Krohn Traaseth, who had led the agency since 2014, announced in November 2018 that she would step down.[3][12] The position drew 65 applicants, 19 women and 46 men, and the recruitment firm BackerSkeie assisted the board.[12] On April 8, 2019, the board announced Haugli's appointment at a press conference in Trondheim.[13]

The board chair, Gunnar Bovim, described him as "an experienced and versatile leader with a background in business, politics and organisational life", and said he knew Innovation Norway well from the outside through joint projects with Abelia. Bovim said the board had placed great weight on his broad experience, including internationally, and his participation in a number of councils and committees.[3] The Minister of Trade and Industry, Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, called him "a capable and experienced driving force for Norwegian business development".[13]

His arrival followed a period of turmoil at the agency under his predecessor. E24 reported in its article on his appointment that Traaseth had received a written warning from the board in 2016, that the previous board chair, Per Otto Dyb, had resigned in March 2018 with a letter criticising her leadership, and that the agency had been criticised in 2018 for hiring eight senior managers without advertising the posts, although an external Deloitte review found no breach of law or ethical rules.[12]

The announcement gave August 1, 2019, as his start date. On April 30, 2019, Teknisk Ukeblad reported that he would instead take over on May 15, two and a half months earlier than planned.[3][2]

Early priorities

In a podcast interview with Teknisk Ukeblad before he started, Haugli said that he would lead a review of how Innovation Norway used its funding instruments. "The instruments must trigger something, and it is important to be critical of spending and of how things are set up," he said. He said that entrepreneurship in Norway had become measurably better, but that the country was still not good at scaling companies, and that while foreign investment could be very good, it was important for Norway to keep jobs in the country over time.[2]

Pandemic years (2020 to 2021)

Innovation Norway's financing to business rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the agency, it provided NOK 12.5 billion in grants, loans and guarantees in 2020 and NOK 9.2 billion in 2021.[7] In December 2021 the agency published the ten largest grants it had made that year, from a list of more than 5,000 supported projects. They included NOK 60 million to ACD Pharma for a bacteriophage factory at Leknes in Lofoten, and environmental technology grants to the battery companies Beyonder and Freyr. Haugli said the list showed "that Innovation Norway's very largest awards go to the projects that respond to the great societal challenges and contribute to the development of a green business sector".[14]

Europe and Germany (2023)

In November 2023 Haugli led Norway's business delegation to Germany, a visit to Hamburg and Munich that included Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, three government ministers and what he described as a record number of Norwegian companies. In an opinion article in Altinget he argued that Norway had to show itself to be a predictable, long-term energy supplier to Germany as its oil and gas exports declined, and pointed to hydrogen exports and the storage of captured carbon dioxide under the North Sea as two areas where Norwegian companies could contribute to Germany's energy transition.[15]

Green industrial financing (2024)

On September 2, 2024, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Cecilie Myrseth, launched Grønn industrifinansiering (Green Industrial Financing), a loan scheme of up to NOK 5 billion for large industrial projects with investment needs above NOK 200 million, to be administered by Innovation Norway. The government set aside NOK 1.75 billion to cover potential losses. Haugli said: "We have seen for a long time that business has a great need for increased access to risk capital. Together with other financing actors, our risk loans can help companies carry out new, large projects." Earlier that year he had named hydrogen, offshore wind, the circular economy and semiconductor production as possible areas for the scheme.[8]

On December 17, 2024, Innovation Norway's board approved loans totalling NOK 1.5 billion to Morrow Batteries, which had opened a battery cell factory near Arendal earlier in the year. The package comprised up to NOK 400 million from the new green industrial scheme, the first project financed under it, and two loans on ordinary commercial terms totalling NOK 1.1 billion. Haugli said the agency and the company had "found solutions that ensure a good distribution of risk between the parties", and that "the loans must be repaid with interest over time, and give the company the basis it needs to raise more private capital".[16]

Competitiveness and preparedness (2026)

In a March 2026 opinion article in Altinget, Haugli argued that Norway should join the European Union's proposed European Competitiveness Fund, due to be launched in 2028 as part of the EU's next budget period. He wrote that the fund would merge 14 existing EU programmes, that Norway already took part in 13 of them, and that the Storting would need to weigh the cost of participation against what the country would risk by staying outside.[17]

On May 12, 2026, Haugli gave Innovation Norway's annual Innovation Speech (Innovasjonstalen) in Bodø, with the Minister of Research and Higher Education, Sigrun Aasland, in the audience. Under the theme "innovation is preparedness", he made five recommendations to the government: strengthen access to risk capital for Norwegian companies, take full part in the EU's competitiveness fund, appoint an expert committee on how to strengthen Norway's capacity for innovation, increase innovation in public procurement, and launch a national effort in artificial intelligence that turns research into new companies. He said Norway was falling in international comparisons of innovation capacity, that start-ups in Norway had the weakest access to risk capital in the Nordic region, and that the country's total research and development spending had fallen from 2.28 percent of GDP in 2020 to 1.8 percent in 2024. "We have long said that we are good at turning money into knowledge, but bad at turning knowledge into money. It has got worse," he said.[18]

Leave of absence (2027)

On November 9, 2026, the board of Innovation Norway announced that Haugli would take leave from January 11 to April 16, 2027, to attend the senior leadership course (sjefskurset) at the Norwegian Defence University College. The board appointed Tina Stiegler, the agency's division director for societal and business development since 2024, as acting chief executive for the period, alongside her existing role. The board chair, Ola H. Strand, said the arrangement ensured "continuity and secure leadership" while Haugli was away.[9] As of November 2026 Haugli remained chief executive.[9]

Leadership and management style

The boards that hired Haugli emphasised his mix of business, political and organisational experience. Abelia's chair said in 2014 that the association had wanted a leader engaged in public affairs, and Innovation Norway's chair said in 2019 that his broad experience gave him a strong understanding of society, of business and of the role of the agency's chief executive.[10][3]

On arriving at Innovation Norway, Haugli said he wanted to be critical of how public money was spent and of how the agency's instruments were set up, and to judge them by whether they "trigger something".[2] His public statements as chief executive have repeatedly presented the agency's role as sharing risk with private capital rather than replacing it. He said of the green industrial scheme that the agency's risk loans would work "together with other financing actors", and of the Morrow loans that they would be repaid with interest and help the company attract private investment.[8][16]

He has also written opinion articles for the political news site Altinget under his own name. In one he wrote that neither Innovation Norway nor Norwegian business should "interfere in political debates", but that both had to be aware of how geopolitical and economic changes affected business.[15]

Major deals and strategic decisions

As chief executive of a state agency, Haugli does not run a company that makes acquisitions. The largest individual decisions reported during his tenure are financing commitments:

  • COVID-19 support, 2020 to 2021: Innovation Norway's financing to business reached NOK 12.5 billion in 2020 and NOK 9.2 billion in 2021, well above the level of later years.[7]
  • Green industrial financing, 2024: the agency was made administrator of a government loan scheme of up to NOK 5 billion for large green industrial projects, and set up a dedicated team, recruited in several parts of the country, to handle it.[8]
  • Morrow Batteries, December 2024: NOK 1.5 billion in loans to the Arendal battery manufacturer, the first commitment under the green industrial scheme.[16]

Financial and market performance

Innovation Norway is a state-owned company and has no share price or market capitalisation. According to the agency, its grants, loans and guarantees to business amounted to NOK 12.5 billion in 2020, NOK 9.2 billion in 2021, and NOK 7.1 billion in 2023, about the same level as in 2022. Including advisory services, profiling and EEA funds, total support in 2023 came to almost NOK 8 billion. The agency also reported that just over NOK 2 billion went to start-ups in 2023, up from NOK 1.5 billion in 2022, and that 96 percent of companies surveyed in its customer impact survey for 2023 said its contribution had been decisive for their project, compared with 91 percent in 2019.[7]

Board memberships and outside roles

  • Member of the Storting's Committee for Oversight of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Security Services (the EOS Committee) from 2014 to 2019. The committee announced in June 2019 that he would leave it.[4][19]
  • Former board member of the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund (Lånekassen) and of the Center for Service Innovation at the Norwegian School of Economics.[3]
  • Member of the council of SINTEF and of the HelseOmsorg21 council, as of April 2019.[3]
  • Board member of AS Lyngfjell from 1991 to 2002, then its chair from 2002.[4]
  • Board member of Helseutvalget from 2007 to 2009.[4]
  • Member of the European Group of the Trilateral Commission, listed in the commission's European membership list of June 2, 2022.[20]

Controversies

Innovation Norway faced public criticism in spring 2025. Writing in May 2025, Peder Inge Furseth, a professor at BI Norwegian Business School, noted that the Progress Party wanted to abolish the agency in its current form. Furseth argued that the agency should be split in two, one part focused on high-growth companies and the other on local and regional innovation, and that its mandate was too broadly worded and allowed support for "far too many weak projects". He also wrote that "the current management is better than the last administrations of the organisation, so it should continue."[21]

Personal life

Haugli is openly gay. Gaysir quoted him as saying, "That I am gay matters for how I see the world."[6] In naming him first on its 2011 list of influential gay Norwegians, Gaysir cited his work on the rights of gay asylum seekers, including his criticism of decisions by the Immigration Appeals Board to return them, his concern for older gay people in nursing homes, and his campaign to repeal section 155 of the Penal Code, the so-called HIV paragraph. The site noted that he was a shareholder in Gaysir AS and that he had been fourth on its 2010 list.[6]

Recognition

  • 2011: first place on Gaysir's Homotoppen list of the most influential gay people in Norway.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Tvedt, Knut Are."Håkon Haugli". Store norske leksikon. November 26, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Pedersen, Ole Petter."Haugli starter i Innovasjon Norge 2,5 måneder før tiden". April 30, 2019. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 "Håkon Haugli blir ny administrerende direktør for Innovasjon Norge". Innovasjon Norge. April 8, 2019. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 "Biografi: Haugli, Håkon". Stortinget. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Håkon Haugli elected as rapporteur for LGBT issues in PACE". Stortinget. March 23, 2012. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "Homotoppen 2011: Håkon Haugli". Gaysir. January 7, 2011. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "Facts and numbers". Innovation Norway. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Jor, Eira Lie."Privat kapital skal lede an, men fellesskapet skal også stille opp". September 2, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Tina Stiegler konstitueres som administrerende direktør i Innovasjon Norge". Innovasjon Norge via NTB Kommunikasjon. November 9, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Wibe, Hilde Widerøe."Håkon Haugli ny administrerende direktør i Abelia". Abelia. February 3, 2014. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Europarådet gir klar beskjed: Menneskerettigheter favner alle". Stortinget. June 27, 2013. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 "Abelia-topp blir sjef i Innovasjon Norge". April 8, 2019. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Håkon Haugli blir ny sjef for Innovasjon Norge". April 8, 2019. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  14. ↑ "Disse ti prosjektene fikk mest støtte i 2021". Innovasjon Norge via NTB Kommunikasjon. December 29, 2021. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Haugli, Håkon."Håkon Haugli: Norske bedrifter trenger økt europeisk samarbeid". November 10, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Bjørklund, Ingrid."Morrow Batteries får statlig lån på 1,5 milliarder kroner". December 17, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  17. ↑ Haugli, Håkon."Norge må med når Europa inviterer til tidenes innovasjonsløft". March 5, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  18. ↑ "Innovasjonstalen 2026: Innovasjon er beredskap". Innovasjon Norge via NTB Kommunikasjon. May 12, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  19. ↑ "Stortingets presidentskap har innstilt nye medlemmar til EOS-utvalet". EOS-utvalget. June 13, 2019. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  20. ↑ "European Membership (on 2 June 2022)". The Trilateral Commission. June 2, 2022. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  21. ↑ Furseth, Peder Inge."Vi trenger et sterkt revidert Innovasjon Norge". BI Business Review. May 26, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
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