Interview by Innovation Norway of Ecteras CEO Sidsel Lindsø
Our founder and CEO was invited to share our story and explain about our company in the InnoPodden, hosted by Innovation Norway and Kjetil Svorkmo Bergmann. In the studio was Cristian Valdes Carter, Director of Strategic Staff and Sidsel Lindsø as guests.
Summary:
Ecteras, formerly ExploCrowd, specialises in subsurface expertise, especially for CO₂ storage and geological risk assessment.
The company was born during the 2016 oil downturn, driven by Lindsø’s vision to use geoscience for long-term value and societal impact.
Ecteras operates like a high-performance scientific team, delivering fast, high-quality results for major clients, often under tight deadlines.
Their independence from oil companies allows them to advise regulators, emitters, and policymakers with credibility.
They emphasize trust-building and collaboration, often becoming “kingmakers” by helping clients succeed in complex projects.
Ecteras plays a key role in CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage), helping clients avoid costly mistakes by understanding subsurface realities.
Lindsø highlights the gender bias in the industry, sharing personal experiences and strategies for overcoming systemic challenges.
The company received early support from Innovation Norway, which helped them stay ahead in CCS innovation.
They’ve developed cost-saving solutions, like open-source modeling tools, that accelerate project timelines and reduce expenses.
Lindsø advocates for realistic CCS ambitions, emphasizing Norway’s leadership and the need for responsible use of public funds.
Guest: Sidsel Lindsø, founder and CEO of Ecteras Subsurface Experts
From Innovation Norway: Cristian Valdes Carter, Director of Strategic Staff
Host: Kjetil Svorkmo Bergmann
Host: Some people thrive best below the surface—often far below. Ecteras is one of them. The company offers extensive experience and deep expertise in areas such as CO₂ storage. “The work we do moves billions,” says Sidsel Lindsø, founder and CEO. She dives into the business here on Innopodden, joined by Cristian Valdes Carter and me, Kjetil Svorkmo Bergmann.
Host: Welcome to Innopodden, Sidsel Lindsø.
Lindsø: Thank you very much.
Host: It’s great to have you here. We need to hear a bit about the company. Ecteras is quite a new name - previously, it was called ExploCrowd. We’d love to hear more about the name too, but first tell us, how did you get the idea to start the company?
Lindsø: The idea came on June 9th, back in 2016 [on a plane from Copenhagen to Bologna]. I remember it very clearly. To explain how it came about, I need to tell you a bit about who I am and who my colleagues are. I’m a geologist. And a geologist lives in a slightly different world than most others. That means my world is quite different from yours. In my world, continents float around and countries bump into each other to form mountain ranges. There are earthquakes and major faults, and tiny minerals form here and there, becoming resources we discover. That means I live on a different scale, where life began 540 million years ago. I learned that on my first day at university. For comparison, in my previous timeline, the Egyptians and Neanderthals were recent. So we geoscientists work with completely different dimensions, and that’s important to understand—because it explains what our business is about. We use that experience to understand what’s happening underground, and we use that expertise to find CO₂ storage sites, minerals, various resources we use in daily life, and also oil and gas. In fact, Norway is wealthy thanks to geologists.
Host: But what happened on June 9th? That was in 2016?
Lindsø: In 2016 there was a full blown downturn in the oil industry, and I was working as a geologist in that sector. At the time, even the famous and super-skilled experienced geologists were being laid off left, right and center. It’s a cyclical industry [based on commodities], so you always know the industry will bounce back: hence it crashes, all the geologists get fired, then it recovers and needs geologists again. So we thought: our expertise will be needed in the future.
I had a mentor [coming from a family where starting your own business was completely out of the question this was important] who said, “Okay, you are ready, you know you’re going to lose your job: which business are you going to start tomorrow?” That made me think hard about it, and I believed that I would have a chance to succeed. But I need two things in place - and I love two things: I love my field of expertise, the science, and I love people. I love seeing them grow, and when you work together and make things happen, it’s an amazing feeling.
There were two aspects important for starting the company. First: we thought, let’s focus on what the oil companies don’t have time for now that they’re laying off all their geologists. Let’s become incredibly good at that. We had some ideas and concepts we could develop and hopefully sell later. But it was quite a bold idea, because how could we believe we could be better than the oil companies themselves? And how could we build the trust needed to be invited into their inner sanctum? But just the fact that we foresaw a future need, because the industry requires long-term thinking, and many companies in the industry don’t have that luxury, led us to start mapping the entire underground of the Norwegian continental shelf, so we’d be ready when the future clients were. It’s an incredibly exciting concept, and maybe not with a big chance to succeed, but I had another driving force, and that’s the second part: if I could succeed with this, if a woman could succeed with such a specialised scientific company in a rather tough industry, hopefully it would inspire and enable other women. Because when space is created for one, space is created for more. And maybe we could open up an industry that isn’t always receptive to new ideas, just a little bit more?
Host: There are many things here we’ll hear more about, but we need to hear a bit more about you too, Cristian. Håkon Haugli, who usually co-hosts Innopodden with me, had to cancel this time, so you’re joining us. You’re relatively new as Director of Strategic Staff at Innovation Norway. Before that, you led our office in India, among other things. Tell us a bit more about who you are.
Carter: Thank you very much. Yes, before I went to India and moved from little Bergen to the world’s second-largest city, New Delhi, I worked in oil and gas myself. I led a company called CCB Subsea, which dealt with subsea maintenance, meaning maintenance of underwater equipment, and also the development of new designs and tools for the oil and gas industry. It was a fantastic time, even though we were hit pretty hard by COVID. But I really enjoyed being in an environment surrounded by engineers. I’m a lawyer myself, so very far from your field of expertise Sidsel, but it was incredibly rewarding and educational to be around engineers and also to be in the workshops and see how you can take a very practical approach to problem-solving. Another takeaway from my previous life in oil and gas is the culture, which I find very special: both vertically, in the relationship between customer and supplier and how they challenge each other, and horizontally, across the industry. We’ve had very good tools for that in Innovation Norway, like the clusters, for example. That’s my background, before that I worked in fisheries and real estate. And if we go all the way back to the beginning, I don’t have quite as exotic a background as Sidsel. But I was born in Chile, and there are very large earthquakes there.
Host: That’s exotic enough by Norwegian standards!
Carter: So continental plates and such, I actually had very good knowledge of that already when I was very little.
Host: Aha, so you live partly in the world Sidsel is in, and partly in the world that I and many others are in.
Carter: Yes, you could say that. To put it briefly, yes.
Host: Sidsel, Ecteras says “we help our clients succeed below the surface,” and that sounds great. But for those of us not in the industry, what is it that you actually do?
Lindsø: We’re scientists, and we look at data - subsurface data. Deep in the ground, we have well data or seismic data. Seismic data are sound waves sent down through the ground that show an image of geological layers and structures. And what we are is if you imagine an Olympic sports team, that’s basically what we are, just with scientists. Because we’ve trained and trained, again and again. And in the same way as if you have a regatta, a sailing race, where you compete against others you train to become skilled, good, better. Every day you compete against yourself.
And because we love what we do and because we work so closely together and have built a strong performance culture you can design culture to enhance innovation opportunities.
We can come back to the topic and talk more about what culture means for innovation capacity, because it means a lot, but in this case it means that our team has been able to know that when things happen, we will be ready with solutions. Another thing is that we work a lot with research and development, and these are projects that are completely impossible to plan. But we’ve never missed a deadline because we’re quite good at understanding that we as a team are going to find something valuable and how to use it. So we always start a project with “we don’t know what we’re going to find, but we’re going to find something”. And that’s often what makes the difference in how you move billions of kroner back and forth.
Carter: May I ask, who are your clients?
Lindsø: It started with oil companies, because all our sales are relationship- and network based: they’re built through trust and reputation, and we have been mostly available at a short notice when they need our assistance NOW [that has been appreciated]. So it started with oil companies, and it’s moving more and more into the European - what can we say – political arena, where we actually support and advise emitters and consultancies supporting emitters, but also political actors, like regulators meaning lawmakers. Because they also need to understand this, and we have a role to play here because we’re independent, we’re not an oil company. That means Europe can listen to us, but they prefer not to talk to oil companies. So the expertise that oil companies have they can’t share, because they don’t have the opportunity to share the insights in the same way we can. So we have a unique role where we can step in and contribute.
Carter: Knowledge-based advice for both politicians and regulators, then?
Lindsø: Yes, and also some of the emitters in the market who are facing all this new information and complexity they need to understand, for example how long the CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) value chain is and what it consists of. It can be quite overwhelming for many to get a grip on the interdependencies, and it takes a while to get up to speed, so the subsurface aspects of CCS are often too simplified or simply overlooked. So we often end up waving our hands and saying “It’s also important to understand whether there actually is a storage site at the location where the project business developer at the other end of the value chain thinks it is. We have seen too often that it is actually not the case. And that’s where we say that subsurface aspects matters, because it’s a pretty essential part of a CCS project, if there is a chance that you can store CO2 at a specific location or not.
Host: But you’re a fairly small company with relatively few employees. Some of the clients you work with, and perhaps your competitors too, are giant corporations with thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of employees. How does that work?
Lindsø: If we go back in time, we were 25 people working as a team and were essentially plugged into the client companies. Often this happened because of a strategic shift in large companies, “Now we’re changing strategy, now we’re going to do this”. But their challenge when changing stragety is often that they have so few resources available, so they actually need assistance in shape of a task force team that takes care of everything. Hence, they ask us: “Can you fix it?” and then we step in and deliver. I mentioned the sports team analogy because we as a high performance team deliver at a much higher speed than most others in large companies. In addition they have routines with processes, procedures, structures, and since we’re completely independent of that, including their internal hierachy and strategy, we operate at a higher speed.
An example of this is that we had a client, and actually, thinking about it that is also part of our success: we make our clients successful. Because of the way we are working with clients we are often kingmakers inside these organisations. They bring us in, and suddenly they become stars because they succeed with something that seemed impossible. One of them told me that when he shared the timeline for our project with others inside the organisation, people just laughed. So we operate at a different speed, but the quality is often higher than they expect. It’s a bit unique, but incredibly satisfying to work with.
Another example is a story from a few years ago. A client came to us as there was a license round that came up unexpectedly and much sooner than anticipated. Hence, no one had done any work on that depth level of the open acreage before. That meant that six months of work had to be delivered in only three weeks. They came to us and said, “We’re a bit desperate, what can you do with what we have?”. We made a plan, and later they told us that when they presented the plan to their partners, the partners laughed. But we managed it within the ambitious timeline and got an applause in the meeting when we delivered. Everyone, our whole team, was engaged, helping each other and stepping up when others needed the support, and it was great! You enter this flow zone when working intensely like this. But of course you plan to enter that flow zone. For scientists who love their work, it’s a fantastic motivator, and it even gives you a kick when you think back on the experience.
So we’ve created a company with experts who are highly skilled in their field of expertise, love their work, and make this unique subsurface expertise available to those who need it, when they need it.
Host: Yes, because this is primarily about the people, then.
Lindsø: Absolutely.
Host: It’s very exciting to hear you talk about this. You work deep inside the heart of the companies you support, and we have touched upon what you can contribute with and what you can offer, capacity that they don’t have themselves at that point in time. But trust is incredibly important here. How do you gain the trust of companies to go so deep into the core of their operations?
Lindsø: It’s time. Time to prove yourself again and again. But also constantly and continuously demonstrating that you’ve got their back, and we have been successful at that. One of the things people actually challenged us about in the beginning was: how can you come in and be a competitor to regular employees - because they are probably afraid of losing their jobs to you? But that’s not how it works. We’ve worked with many people who love working with us because it’s an experience—being pulled into this investigative work, and many really look forward to our meetings. We contribute and include people. And we deliver something they need to succeed even better. Hence, we help them succeed, and I’ll admit, that is a great feeling.
If you look at top management level, they often have very little time. Their resources are already booked - remember, we talked about how all the geologists get laid off during downturns - so they don’t have enough resources, and then we come in and help. I had an experience the first time I met one of these top executives. He came to me and said, “Can you deliver what has been promised?”. My heart started beating pretty fast, but I managed to reply that I got things under control and my biggest concern actually was whether his people would be ready to be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. That was actually his biggest concern too, he admitted, and then we agreed to stay in touch. We delivered as promised, and actually managed to impress them, is my understanding.
And now, we lost quite a bit of work last year, during and after the summer. The whole team was booked up until Christmas, and many people were involved, and suddenly the client cancelled all the work – and we experienced that the market situation had changed significantly, so there will be less activity for a while. But we still hear from people who worked with the people in the client team we worked with before the summer last year, as they have heard so many good things about us, and they want to learn more. That’s heartening.
Host: Exactly.
Lindsø: We are actually in this strange situation where we can’t go out and market ourselves, at least not broadly outside our networks, because then we risk to lose our credibility within this closed business. And at the same time we need to operate in a market where we don’t really work relationally.
Host: Yes, that’s an interesting situation.
Carter: You’re in an industry that’s very knowledge-based, with a very advanced security culture and so on. So you need to have very watertight solutions, right? Before you can sell them and …
Lindsø: If I make a mistake, it costs …
Host: Billions.
Lindsø: Ten billion.
Carter: Yes. You can either save billions or you can get, right? A delay on a project, and that generates huge costs, right? But you said something, if I remember correctly, you said they know what they want. But do you also experience that sometimes the clients don’t really know what they need? That you have to tell them what they actually need?
Lindsø: We have some fantastic examples with CCS, on this, and actually thanks to Innovation Norway. The reason is that in 2020, when everything collapsed for everyone, we applied for funding and got 400,000 NOK for a study. That allowed us to stay ahead in terms of technological development and solutions – and actually compared to many of the oil companies. Several of them have adopted workflows from us, but it’s taken time.
An example is that we got a job where a geologist had taken all their old oil and gas prospects, recycled them, and pitched them as potential CO₂ storage sites with an enormous storage capacity. We looked at each other and said, “How do we tell the client that this isn’t how it works?”. This had to be done in a clever way so that we build their knowledge and they realise it themselves. Because we can’t go in and say, “That person is wrong”. Never! So we navigate that space and find good solutions.
And we managed to deliver that project in a way so that one of from the QC team who worked on the project, whom I spoke to afterward, said, “We came into the project thinking we knew quite a lot, but you showed us we had a lot to learn, but in a very good way”. Hence, because we’ve explored, tested, and investigated on our own first our team is ahead of the game, and the client has been able to benefit from that, accelerating their ambitions and avoiding costly mistakes and time spent.
One example of that, testing and experimenting: I work with someone who is super, super smart. A few years ago he disappeared for three weeks and came back having tested some Python code on open software. He resurfaced and said “Now I have a solution so that this open-source software can be used as a solution for dynamic modelling of CO2 storage capacity in a very short timeframe”, and we saved clients three million NOK on a project in software alone. Instead of our project taking six months, like it usually does for others, we could do it in three weeks.
Host: Fantastic.
Lindsø: It’s a value proposition that’s quite attractive to many of our clients.
Carter: So interesting to hear! I also received support in 2020 for a project. Yes, it was during the COVID period, and it was… a conversion kit for a Christmas tree. The listeners will just have to try to visualize what that is.
Host: It’s not the kind of Christmas tree we usually have in the living room?
Lindsø: It’s a bit more expensive.
Carter: A bit more expensive - it costs about 30 million, maybe. It’s a set of valves that regulate the flow of oil and gas. But I… no, it’s incredible: you talk about all this Sidsel, and I find myself dreaming back to where I came from at CCB Subsea. And I think CCS, or carbon storage, as an area you’re exploring, has very strong momentum now. I’ve been in India for 4.5 years, and when I arrived there, there was very little interest in it. But just over those years, it has grown significantly. Just a month ago, we had a visit from the Indian Minister of Petroleum, who toured the Northern Lights project with all the chairpersons of the national oil companies. So I think you’ve done good groundwork and are well positioned to handle what’s coming. But for example, the regulatory side needs to be a bit further along.
Lindsø: They’re actually quite far along.
Carter: Are they?
Lindsø: Yes, they are.
Host: Now, both of you are clearly very supportive of carbon capture and storage. Not everyone is. There are many critical voices when it comes to that. Tell me a bit about how you both view it in the longer term.
Carter: I don’t think you can avoid carbon capture and storage in a low-emission society. I think most people agree on that. The question is, will it cost more than it’s worth? I visited the Technology Centre Mongstad a few weeks ago. It’s the world’s largest and most flexible test center for capture technologies. They told me that to reach the goals we’ve set, we need a certain number of carbon capture facilities per day to meet those targets. And we’re nowhere near that. So that tells me there’s a huge upside here. At the same time, it should also generate a lot of business development, and I think Norway is very far ahead in that, developing a full-scale value chain that will spin off a lot of innovation. Take the “U” in CCUS, utilization of carbon. I think there’s a huge upside there, both in agriculture, methanol, fuel, and yes, for example, in farming.
Host: And for you, Sidsel, this has become one of the most important things you do?
Lindsø: So with what I’m about to say … remember that the most important thing for us is credibility. One of the things we talk about is that perhaps some of the ambitions being communicated are a bit too high?
Host: Oh?
Lindsø: The reason is that what we’re afraid of is that because the ambitions are so incredibly high in terms of speed and magnitude, projects will “fail” and look like a fiasco because things take longer than expected. But it’s been politically decided that the hard-to-abate sectors in Europe must get rid of their CO₂ - or they can’t continue operations. Hence, it has to be done. And what we’re seeing now is that one green project after another is falling apart [and it worries everyone]. What we care about is the sensible use of taxpayers’ money and CO₂ storage is not exactly economically viable right now [and need public funding]. CO₂ storage is basically waste handling, and what we care about is that taxpayers’ money is protected and shielded in the best possible way. What Norway has done is a very expensive collective effort with the Northern Lights and Longship project. And they’ve gone out and said, “We’ll provide this bag of money to demonstrate to the world how this should be done.” So we in Norway are sponsoring that learning, and I think that’s a really good way to do things. Norway has invested that money in being a role model and led the way. But Norway has also built significant expertise that can be exported.
Host: So you’re really creating new opportunities with it in the long run.
Lindsø: Norway sits on so much expertise that is currently undervalued in the rest of the world. And there’s a learning curve the world has to go through, and Norway can contribute very strongly.
Host: It’s exciting to hear. You mentioned the support from Innovation Norway - the 400,000 NOK you received. That’s not really a lot of money, at least not in oil and gas terms, that’s for sure. It’s a lot of money for you and me, but it’s small in the big picture. You told me earlier that you actually tricked Innovation Norway into giving you support once.
Lindsø: Yes, and that simply comes down to the simple fact that I’m a woman.
Carter: Interesting!
Lindsø: The reason is that when you’re a woman starting a company, it’s incredibly difficult to get access to investor funding. Fortunately, at the time, I didn’t know how hard it was. We didn’t have the numbers from Unconventional Ventures, which say that only one percent of venture capital goes to women. If I had known that, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been so brave and started a company, actually.
Carter: It’s not often we have guests who admit they tricked us.
Host: No, it’s not—but I think the statute of limitations has expired here, so…
Lindsø: Yes, but remember this was in 2016, so everything was very fresh for many people in the startup business. We started the company during the summer 2016, because we had crossed the point of “OK, this idea is too good not to try” with the concept. And that threshold, “if I grow old and look back with regret that we didn’t test it”, that was quickly reached. We wanted to test the concept of the company with investors at an Angel Challenge pitch contest. And people come back to me and say, “I remember you standing there that day with such confidence”. That confidence comes from the science, right? I knew I could succeed with the science, and fortunately that made an impression.
We entered this Angel Challenge contest and were on track to win it. And then we got the investor contract. And the investor contract was full of red flags. I had help to look through the contract and the feedback I got was “If you sign this, you’ll lose your company and all IP within a year”. It was one of those American-style contracts that had been copy-pasted. So we withdrew. That meant that the others could win and get money from angel investors, and then Innovation Norway would match the angel investment with a million NOK in funding. But the others who were also on track to win read the investor contract and withdrew too. So suddenly there was a free million from Innovation Norway with no place to go.
And we had an investor, Halvor Øgreid, a phenomenal investor for us and he said, “OK, shall we get other angel investors? We’ll contribute 500,000 so we can trigger that Innovation Norway million.”
The fun part: that was all we got. Two million NOK, and we haven’t received more capital since. But we’ve paid a lot of taxes, so we’ve probably been a good investment anyway. So you could say we tricked you - but I’m just saying it like it is and put quite bluntly: when you’re a woman starting up a company, you have to be a little extra smart.
“When you create space for one, you create space for more”
Sidsel lindsø, CEO of Ecteras Subsurface Experts
Host: Yes, we’d love to hear more about that too, but…
Carter: For once, I feel it’s kind of nice to be tricked.
Host: Right? This is a company that primarily belongs to the oil and gas sector, Cristian. What do you think - would they be eligible for support from Innovation Norway today?
Carter: We’re not here to process a support application, but clearly, if the solution has a place in a low-emission society and contributes to moving us in the direction we need to go, then the general answer is yes. As I mentioned, I also received support myself. It was a slightly different support regime back then. But I believe that if you have a solid transition plan, this would definitely be a very interesting project to consider.
Lindsø: Then I think we should talk a bit later, because we actually have a solution for a scalable portfolio management platform software, together with some partners. You asked me about the future: I truly believe that we can really help understanding and reducing risk for emitters and everyone involved in the CCS business value chain. So that was interesting to hear!
Carter: Yes, I think it’s more about what we can define as boundaries, right? In such an application review. But I think carbon storage and capture, and the entire value chain, is something Norway has clearly taken the lead on. So I immediately think it fits very well into what we want to help scale and commercialise.
Host: Sidsel, you briefly touched on being a woman in a very male-dominated industry. Innovation Norway is committed to supporting more female entrepreneurs and believes society misses out on a lot when we don’t have that. Tell us a bit about your experiences as a woman in the oil and gas industry, which is quite male-dominated.
Lindsø: What’s important to understand is that in my community, my geoscience community, I feel safe, I’m well respected, and there are academics who behave properly.
Host: And then it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman?
Lindsø: Not at all, not in what I’ve been fortunate enough to experience. Not a single sexually charged comment, ever. But when I stick my nose outside of that safe environment, it’s actually quite different. Even with my age and level of expertise. I especially notice it when I go to Denmark. Honestly, I think Denmark is 20 years behind Norway: I would never have succeeded with what I’ve achieved in Norway if I had been in Denmark.
An example was from a large CCS conference in Denmark, and someone addressed me as “our princess”. Shortly after, someone called me “little girl” in front of familiar faces from my network. It stems from a fundamental insecurity, right? Let’s say 5% feel so insecure that they actually say something, consciously or subconsciously, but the thing is that hose comments actually harm my business because it has to do with how the business is compared with other businesses where it doesn’t help much being named a princess.
Another example is that I had a week this year, leading up to International Women’s Day, and it was simply ironic. On Monday, I was told my voice was too light for a podcast, because you don’t have the same gravitas with a light female voice as men with deeper voices do. On Wednesday, I was supposed to present to 70 people in a professional setting, and was thrown under the bus by someone who was supposed to be a partner. He took over the role, to the surprise of many, and it was utterly unprofessional. At the end of that week I went to Oslo and was told in a meeting that “men are just a bit more creative than women”. And the cherry on top: we were in an interview with Finansavisen TV. When I walked out, my male partner, Tim Dodson, a longtime leader and exploration geologist in Equinor,was offered the magazine Kapital. I was kindly offered an interior design magazine by the receptionist.
Host: Is that even possible? These aren’t exactly stories that make one proud.
Carter: I thought we had come further than this.
Lindsø: Yes, but it’s important to know that it exist. And I must admit that I do get sad thinking about it, because I’ve made such a significant footprint in my industry. So if I, with my age, respect, and presence experience this, I’m truly sad on behalf of those who are 20 or 25 years old. They’ll have to go through much more than one would hope. I estimate that there are 5% out there who are ill-intentioned [mostly because they themselves feel insecure], and then there are others who just don’t think when they speak. Unconsicous bias runs deep and systematically in our society, and you have to develop strategies to handle the inconvenient outfome. If you think it doesn’t exist, you can’t handle it. If you know it exists and face it, then there are strategies for how to deal with it. You become a master at handling master domination techniques.
An example for one of the strategies that worked for me when we were starting the company was that I always had a man by my side who was 60+ years old. He never had to say anything in the meetings with potential clients, but his presence was validating me, and as long as we entered the meeting and I got the time to speak and explain, it was like, “oh, she’s actually quite smart”, and they started listening. That was all that was needed, really. So if you zoom out a bit and look at the big picture more broadly, women shouldn’t be wrapped in cotton wool of course, but you just need to know that if you give a few more opportunities, they’ll likely be especially appreciated.
Another example I also have to share, to illustrate how bad it can be is that our company was part of a lawsuit at one point, one that wasn’t initiated by us. During this process a client actually told me that they had a meeting where they evaluated me as a person. The conclusion of that meeting was that I was too weak to fight back. And we’re talking about several million they didn’t want to pay - because they strategically assessed that our company wouldn’t dare to fight [implicit because it was led by a woman was our interpretation]. It went all the way to court and negotiations. But it turned out well.
Host: Exactly.
We hope we don’t hear too many stories like that, but it’s been incredibly interesting to hear your story today. We hope we’ve managed to unite these worlds - the geological plates, or tectonic plates that collide - and the world of business that we operate in. Thank you for being our guest, Sidsel Lindsø, founder and CEO of Ecteras, and thank you to Cristian Valdes Carter, Director of Strategic Staff at Innovation Norway. My name is Kjetil Svorkmo Bergmann, and you will hear from us again on Innopodden.
