– A digital professional star is gone, leaving a big void
Lars Georg was a digital entrepreneur who never changed jobs. He was from the very beginning in Making Waves (now NoA Ignite) from 2001 and has been one of the most central contributors in the development of NoA from 2014. Lars Georg leaves a big void and he misses deeply.
Our thoughts go first and foremost to Lars Georg’s family, the great love of his life Elisabeth, the daughters Hermine and Mathea of whom he was so proud and the rest of the family. We want to know the warmth of the many who mourn with.
Lars Georg had a fantastic day. At NoA Ignite’s strategy meeting in Copenhagen, he presented the growth strategy for the Norwegian part of the company and discussed the way forward with Scandinavian and Polish friends. He gave almost the same presentation on omnichannel e-commerce to fire groups in turn, but just the keynote based on the reaction he got after each round. That was how he was: Competent, clear and communicative, but always in search of learning. Learning, not teaching. We have never put him better!
The smile was loose the day he met back from Sweden, Denmark and Poland, he had not settled in a year, and he was attached to new ties. We who were with him last night talked about how proud we were of what we have had for the last 20 years, we talked about life and we looked forward to continuing. That road we have to go without Lars Georg, but the direction is set.
When Lars Georg was to introduce himself, he used to say that he was born and raised with colleagues and a customer in Making Waves. He started in his first job with us in October 2001. At that time he was a newly educated and modest northerner, but obviously sharp.
We were lucky to follow Lars Georg’s development from a small restrained thinker to the one who most obviously took the big stages. In all his years, he spent a lot of free time reading up, following international trends and immersing himself through studies and courses at NTNU, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard and BI. He picked out what he found relevant, tested it out in his own customer work, and contributed to the development of our company by putting things in the system.
He believed that management is about creating results through others, and was passionate about others developing. He showed his colleagues a boundless trust, and we are many current and former employees who have learned a lot from Lars Georg and have a lot to thank him for.
He has been a key strategic advisor to Norway’s largest grocery player ‚and led what is unparalleled the largest and most important assignment NoA Ignite has had over time.
Over the years, Lars Georg has made a significant contribution internally within the company, but the main scene has always been customer engagement. He was a staunch advocate for everything we do to be customer-oriented – “from the outside-in”. Our strategy had to be driven by actual customer needs, the development of our people had to take place in the context of the customer assignments, and what defined successes was the business impact of what we created.
The first example of this is the collaboration with NorgesGruppen over the past nine years. He has been a key strategic advisor to Norway’s largest grocery player ‚and led what is unparalleled the largest and most important assignment NoA Ignite has had over time. This is interesting in itself, but the most important effect for us has been how Lars Georg helped to develop and define the entire NoA Ignite with this customer relationship as a mold – in everything from work processes, tools and roles to architecture and technology platforms.
In the days before Making Waves became part of NoA, Lars Georg and his closest colleagues were convinced that as long as we provided digital services that were frictionless and useful to end users, recommendations and mouth to mouth ensure success. Lars Georg stood on the stage and talked about Customer age and how customer experience and design thinking were the most important keys to a successful business.
“Aren’t there advertisements to remove money since the brand is built through the digital products?”
“No, it is definitely not,” Lars Georg concluded after meeting the new family members.
He was triggered by ideas to bring together leading Nordic environments in brand building, market communication and technology, and quickly and by becoming the strongest ambassadors for cooperation in NoA. He also became one of the very first advisors and customer leaders in NoA, across agency and country. When new companies or colleagues joined the NoA family, Lars Georg was the first to contact and warmly welcome them and discuss possible collaborative projects. Lars Georg was a NoA patriot until recently.
Now we mourn the loss of an unusually skilled professional who was a strategic driving force, an energy bundle and a constant agent of change. Lars Georg never saw problems or boundaries, only opportunities. He had a fearless and strategic head with great capacity and a bigger heart. He was a marked person who was not afraid to say what he meant, always with a smile on his face, a good dose of self-irony – driven by a constant ambition that we should get better together.
He loved his family, and referred to the workplace as his second family. The love was mutual.
Rest in peace, Lars Georg!
This memorial word is signed Thomas Høgebøl (founder and working chairman of NoA), Lars Kreken (CFO of NoA), Kristine Bjørnstad (general manager of NoA Ignite), Asbjørn Vølstad (customer director of NoA Ignite), Kim Ydse Krogstad (outgoing head of NoA Norway) and Hans Olav Hellem (HR director at NoA Norway).
– Lars Georg had a fantastic day at work. At NoA Ignite’s strategy meeting in Copenhagen, he presents the growth strategy for the Norwegian part of the company and discussed the way forward with Scandinavian and Polish products, several of Teigen’s colleagues write in this memoir.