Bjarte Bugge, CEO of Usify - new board member

I have a rather varied background. A Norwegian who started his career as a nurse. Since then I have done many different things. My first encounter with the IT industry was as an IT manager at a hospital, but then I spent many years in product and service development in most industries. When my wife wanted to move home to Sweden, I naturally followed. I continued to work around the world with product and service development but always felt a great frustration with how we worked. It was often inside out and often based on what we already knew. The user was not the focus. To cut a long story short, this is what led me to start Usify, of which I am the CEO. It was many years ago that we started and along the way we have developed the business in many ways. Today we work with service design, interaction design (UX, graphic design) and design thinking to support organizations' strategy work.

What are you most looking forward to in your work as a member of the Board? 

I have always been very involved in society. Seeing people is always the prerequisite for creating opportunities for meaningful change. Since the IT and telecom industry is crucial to solving the major challenges we face as a society, it feels right to be involved in influencing how we do it going forward.

What do you feel you can contribute to the Board?

My main focus is to make our industry relevant to users. In many cases, it certainly is already, but I see that we still have a long way to go. I hope to bring a different perspective, also given my rather diverse background.

What issues do you think are most important for IT&Telecom companies to pursue? 

Everything is IT and telecom today. It's an extremely broad industry and I think we need to think a little differently when it comes to skills development. I hope we can bring in other types of skills than those traditionally associated with the industry in order to both increase skills but above all bring in other perspectives!