CEO Gunvor Ulstein’s sparring partner and number one colleague is her elder brother and Dr. Engineer Tore Ulstein, who is deputy CEO and managing director of the Ulstein International.
From a technical perspective, what does innovation entail for you?
“Innovation is hard, purposeful work,” he says. “It’s crucial in order for us to survive as a company in the years to come. We must always challenge fixed paradigms in order to develop new, exciting solutions.
ULSTEIN X-BOW is a good example of this – we brought in industry designers early in the process in order to pull ourselves out of the ‘box’. One important challenge is to manage to work on innovation continuously, even now in a market that is at an all-time high.”
How do you motivate your employees to be innovative?
“This is a very important issue, and I’ve tried to set a good example by being curious and always challenging existing solutions. I try to come up with ideas and, through this, show interest and involvement. The desire to always improve – both products and processes – is always present.”
Does the environmental perspective play any role in your ideas on innovation?
“Yes, but we can obviously focus more on the importance of this and the way in which we communicate our products. For example, the ULSTEIN X-BOW is a new hull design providing increased comfort and safety as well as lower fuel consumption and increased speed, as the bow inclines backwards and the forward hull has been significantly lifted.
How do you get hold of the most talented people? And to keep them?
“The fact that we are working on new, exciting solutions and have a relatively young, dynamic work environment lays a good foundation for recruitment. We want to give our employees an opportunity to develop through being given major challenges. Those who want to contribute and have good ideas are rarely stopped in our company. It’s also important to underline that we have a good working environment with lots of laughter. We’re also trying to strengthen our interaction with universities and colleges.”
What do you think will happen in the future? What is most crucial to your success?
“I have great faith in the future. There are loads of opportunities that I want Ulstein to take part in. The most critical resource over the next few years will be people with a good professional background who can and want to work in the maritime industry, i e, are curious and wish to contribute, and preferably wish to work for Ulstein. We will focus on diversity and internationalisation.”
