We recently had the privilege of interviewing Stefan Kløvning, COO and Co-founder of Nordic AI, empowering businesses with AI-driven solutions. With strategic experience across sectors, Stefan bridges the gap between AI potential and practical implementation in the field. To simplify AI adoption for businesses and help to unlock its full potential, he built Nordic AI, ensuring efficiency and enhanced competitiveness. With a vision to transform AI potential into business value, Stefan Kløvning is driving business success with tailored AI solutions.
The Beginning
We started the interview by asking, “Could you share some background about yourself, including your early life and educational journey?”
Stefan shared, “My journey has been shaped by a combination of traditional business education and an early recognition of where the world was heading technologically. I completed my Bachelor’s in Business Administration, which gave me a solid foundation in core business principles, and then pursued a Master’s in Accounting & Auditing to deepen my expertise in financial systems and processes.
The turning point came during my final year of undergraduate studies. I was watching the news and seeing digitalization becoming a major trend across industries, and I realized this was going to fundamentally change how business operates. Rather than just observing from the sidelines, I decided to dive in and started taking online courses and teaching myself technical skills alongside my university coursework.
This preparation paid off when I landed a controller position in the energy sector during my Master’s program in early 2023. What made this role particularly exciting was that it allowed me to merge my business and accounting background with these new technical skills I’d been developing. I found myself automating many of my own tasks, and since this was right when ChatGPT was emerging—I was actually an early adopter. I could combine my basic coding knowledge with AI tools to build applications that dramatically improved efficiency in my work.”
He added, “While the role was rewarding both financially and intellectually, with plenty of challenging work that taught me a great deal, I felt this entrepreneurial fire growing inside me. I wanted to take these skills I’d developed and the problems I’d learned to solve, and apply them on a broader scale. That drive eventually led me to take the leap and start my own consulting company, focusing on helping other businesses with similar automation and efficiency challenges.
To be honest, starting a business presented far more challenges than I anticipated when I decided to go all in. But those challenges taught me invaluable lessons about resilience, problem-solving, and adapting to uncertainty, and ultimately brought me to where I am today, with a unique blend of business acumen, technical skills, and entrepreneurial experience.”
More about Stefan Kløvning’s Business
Intrigued to learn more about the business and its regional presence, we asked Stefan Kløvning to share the same.
He explained, “Our company has a really interesting origin story that reflects how the modern business world operates. We’re based in Norway, and we actually formed as a joint venture after three ambitious young entrepreneurs, myself included—met through digital networking events. We discovered this common vision within us about the transformative potential of AI in business, and what started as informal collaboration eventually evolved into a formal partnership.
We’re truly remote-first by design, which makes us unique, and are spread across different parts of Norway, but rather than seeing geography as a limitation, we’ve embraced it as a strength. By operating on principles of freedom and personal responsibility, we trust our team members to choose the working methods that bring out their best performance, creating an incredibly productive and innovative environment.
Essentially, we serve as a gateway between Norwegian and European businesses and the world’s best AI developments and opportunities. Our work spans three main areas: helping businesses take their first steps into AI implementation in their daily operations and administration, conducting comprehensive audits and creating roadmaps showing companies exactly how AI can drive their growth, and we also engage in full-scale development projects where we build custom AI platforms and applications.”
“What makes our role particularly important in this region is addressing a significant challenge. Norway and Europe, frankly, are lagging behind in AI adoption compared to other markets. Many European companies see the EU’s strict regulatory environment as a barrier to innovation. But we see this differently—we believe compliance and agility aren’t mutually exclusive. Our regional role is essentially to serve as that bridge, helping European businesses harness this incredibly powerful technology rapidly and effectively, while ensuring they remain fully compliant with regulations.
In essence, we’re helping our region avoid the false choice between staying competitive and staying compliant—we believe businesses can and must do both,” Stefan added.
What makes a Successful Leader
To understand Stefan Kløvning’s perspective on leadership in his field, we asked, “In your view, what qualities define a successful leader in your industry?”
He explained, “Leading in the AI and technology consulting space requires a very specific blend of vision, execution, and risk management that I’ve observed through both my own experience and watching others in the industry. Firstly, successful leaders in this field need to be exceptional at cutting through noise. The leaders who truly succeed are those who can step back and distinguish between what’s just flashy marketing and what represents genuine long-term value creation. This discernment is crucial because it determines where you invest your time, resources, and credibility.
Beyond that vision piece, execution becomes everything. It’s not enough to spot opportunities—you have to have the courage to take bold action on them. In our fast-moving industry, hesitation often means missing the window entirely. But this boldness has to be paired with exceptional organizational skills because you’re never working on just one initiative. Successful leaders are essentially expert jugglers, managing multiple complex projects simultaneously while ensuring each one maintains its quality and momentum.”
Stefan even mentioned, “What really separates good leaders from great ones, though, is their relationship with risk and problems. The best leaders I’ve encountered have this almost sixth sense for identifying potential issues before they become crises. They’re proactive rather than reactive. And when challenges do arise—which they inevitably will in such a dynamic field—they don’t shy away or try to delegate the difficult conversations. They face problems head-on.
But perhaps most importantly, they understand that leadership isn’t a solo endeavor. They have this ability to rally their team around both the challenges and the opportunities, creating an environment where everyone feels ownership in the outcomes. They turn problem-solving into a collaborative effort that actually strengthens the team rather than just surviving the crisis.”
Embracing Digital Revolution
Technological advancements are redefining businesses across industries. To learn more, we asked Stefan Kløvning, “How has your organization adapted to the ongoing digital revolution and technological advancements?”
Stefan responded, “The interesting thing about our organization is that we didn’t have to adapt to the digital revolution—we were born from it. Our entire existence is fundamentally rooted in this ongoing technological transformation, which gives us a unique perspective that I think sets us apart from companies that are trying to retrofit digital solutions onto traditional business models. This foundation shows up in everything we do. Our core business model isn’t just about using technology, it’s about staying at the absolute cutting edge and then translating that into practical solutions that help our clients scale and grow. We’re not implementing yesterday’s solutions; we’re building with tomorrow’s technology today.
But having cutting-edge tools means nothing if your people can’t leverage them effectively. That’s why we’ve made continuous learning and upskilling a cornerstone of our culture. We’re constantly investing in our team’s development which allows us to provide our clients with advisory services and solutions that they literally can’t get anywhere else because we’re working with capabilities that others haven’t mastered yet.”
He continued, “Our operational structure reflects this forward-thinking approach too. We’re remote-first by design, not by necessity. We treat our team members as the professionals they are, giving them complete autonomy over how, when, and where they work best. Alongside employee satisfaction, it’s about recognizing that the best results come from people who have the freedom to optimize their own productivity and take genuine ownership of the company’s growth.
Perhaps most strategically, we’ve built an extensive network of international connections and partnerships that function almost like a flexible resource pool. This means we can rapidly scale up or down based on project demands, whether we’re taking on a small automation project or a major platform development initiative. We’ve quality-assured these relationships over time, so we can move quickly without sacrificing the high standards our clients expect.”
Words of Wisdom for Beginners
Addressing the aspiring professionals of his field, we requested Stefan Kløvning to share his advice with them.
Stefan Kløvning shared, “The single most important thing I wish I could tell someone starting out in this field is to completely reframe how they think about failure and mistakes. I see so many talented people get paralyzed by the fear of getting things wrong, but that’s actually the opposite of how success works in our industry.
When I look back at my own journey, from those early days teaching myself coding alongside my university courses, to starting my first controller role where I was automating processes I’d never built before, to eventually taking the leap into entrepreneurship—every major breakthrough came after a series of attempts that didn’t work out as planned. But here’s what I learned: trying and failing isn’t the opposite of achieving success. It’s literally part of the road to getting where you want to go.”
“Any goal worth pursuing in this field requires you to push beyond your current capabilities. That means you’re going to be uncomfortable, you’re going to make errors, and things aren’t going to work the first time. The key is making those mistakes quickly and learning from them fast. Don’t spend months perfecting something in theory—build it, test it, see what breaks, and iterate.
This becomes even more crucial if you’re thinking about entrepreneurship or building your own path. I remember when I started my company, there were so many rejections and setbacks that I lost count. But I kept this mindset: if I got rejected once, I’ll try ten more times. Still not working, then try another hundred. The point isn’t stubborn persistence for its own sake—it’s that each ‘no’ teaches you something that gets you closer to the right ‘yes.’
When you’re building something new, especially your own venture, you’re going to be working without a clear roadmap for a long time. There will be months where you can’t see tangible results, where you’re questioning whether you’re on the right track. But if you trust the process and keep moving forward through those difficult periods, everything you’ve learned and built starts to compound. That’s when things finally start to clear up, and all those early struggles become the foundation for something much bigger than you initially imagined,” Stefan added.
Follow Stefan Kløvning on LinkedIn or connect with him via stefan@nordicai.com.
Find Nordic AI on LinkedIn and visit their website https://www.nordicai.com/
Also Read: Our Crisis of Hope: Dr. Tony McCaffrey
