Ms Hilde Skorpen took up the position as Norway’s Consul General in Houston in September 2019.  As Consul General, she is leading Norway’s engagement in ten Southern and Midwestern states, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Island.

Ms Skorpen’s priorities and responsibilities include developing and strengthening political and economic ties between Norway and the consular district, enhancing trade and investment partnerships, with an emphasis on climate and energy, the maritime sector, smart cities, mobility, health tech, research and innovation.

Prior to her current posting, Ms Skorpen served as head of the Section for Business Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo. She held the position of Consul General in San Francisco from 2013 to 2017, serving the thirteen western most states of the US.  She has previously served as Ambassador for disarmament and non-proliferation, and as Deputy Permanent Representative to the Norwegian Mission to the UN in Geneva.  Previous postings include the Norwegian mission to NATO in Brussels and the Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  She has also served as the Foreign Ministry’s Senior Faculty Advisor to the Norwegian National Defense College in Oslo. 

Ms Skorpen earned a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations at Boston University.  She is accompanied by her husband Colonel Ole Stubben (ret.).

Sveinung Rotevatn (born 1987) is a Norwegian lawyer and politician. Rotevatn is the deputy leader of the Norwegian Liberal Party and was appointed Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment on 24 January 2020. Prior to his position as Minister of Climate and Environment, Rotevatn held the position as State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Climate and Environment. Sveinung Rotevatn leads the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly as current president of the UNEA-5.

Rotevatn was elected member of the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) for the period of 2013 to 2017 representing the Norwegian Liberal Party. Before his period as member of parliament he was the leader of the liberal youth party of Norway, The Young Liberals of Norway.

Mark has 30 + years of experience working with the City of New York. The vast majority of that time he has been focusing on Clean Vehicles and Fuels. First at the environmental agency and then at the transportation agency. His projects cover all types of vehicles from the ferries to sedans and fuels from biodiesel to natural gas to battery electric.

Simon now devotes all his time toward transportation electrification including development of fast charging infrastructure in city parking facilities and policies to accelerate the adoption of EV’s. Mark has an MS from NYU in Environmental policy.

Lan Marie Ngyuen Berg is Vice Mayor for Environment and Transport in Oslo’s City Government, which is a three party coalition government. She has been Vice Mayor since 2015, representing the Green Party. Lan entered into politics from a strong and long-term engagement for the climate issue, with a special focus on the need to think globally and act locally. She followed the UN climate change negotiations closely for a number of years.

Lan has previously worked for the Norwegian Directorate for Immigration, Cicero center for climate research and the Mela festival. She has a Master’s degree from the University of Oslo, and has lived in Tuvalu, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam in addition to in Norway.

Tyson Eckerle serves as the Deputy Director of Zero Emission Vehicle Market Development in the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz). In this role, he leads a team focused on scaling the zero emission vehicle market by organizing stakeholder efforts to remove market barriers, create opportunities, and streamline development. Prior to joining GO-Biz, Tyson served as Executive Director of Energy Independence Now, a non-profit dedicated to action-oriented solutions to petroleum dependence and climate change. 

Tyson holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of California, Davis and a Master of Environmental Science and Management (MESM) from the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Mr Rusdal holds a graduate degree from the University of Oslo (cand. real. (M. Sc.)). He has been active within the newspaper and media business for over 20 years, as co-owner and CEO of Nordsjø Media AS. He has also served as Chief Editor of the Group’s main title Jærbladet. He retired from the Group in 2019.

He was President of the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (MBL)  2008-2010 (Board member from 1999) and subsequently President of the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) 2010-2015 (Board member from 2005).

Mr Rusdal was Chairman of the Board of Lyse AS – the regional hydroelectric and telecom company, owned by 16 municipalities in the Stavanger region – in the period 2008-2015 (Board member from 1998) Lyse AS was one of the founders of Nordic Edge AS.

Since 2015, Mr Rusdal has been Chairman of the Board of Nordic Edge AS, the organisers of Nordic Edge – Conference and Expo, and the hub of an ecosystem of activities: The Smart City cluster, Innoasis and international activities.

Mr. Michael Knørr Skov is Vice President for Urban Planning and Transport in COWI and head of green transition and sustainability. Based on his professional skills within mobility, congestion and transport infrastructure he is a member of ATV – the Danish Academy of Technical Science.

Michael is continuously engaged in sector development and discussions of congestion, mobility and infrastructure investments through networks at the Federation of Danish Industry, Science City Lyngby, the Technical University of Denmark and a leading transport policy network. He has given several key note speeches on mobility and congestion and is engaged in public debate about current and future mobility challenges and solutions. Thus he is an expert in understanding and communicating analyses and key performance indicators on especially congestion and the drivers of traffic growth and their impact on travel time at network level.

Michael is highly qualified within transport planning and mobility across all transport modes at national, regional and local level. He has 20 years of experience with studies of congestion and the use of both GPS-based vehicle data sources and roadside data sources for analysing and mapping congestion and derived costs for society. Michael has participated on significant projects within travel time and congestion such as the national Danish research study on outlining methodology for congestion mapping, congestion mapping for the Ministry of Transport, congestion mapping for public transport in the Greater Copenhagen area and designing the solution for real-time traffic information based on GPS-data from a large fleet of vehicles.

Torun Degnes, CEO at SAMS Norway, a business cluster focusing on the development of systems for sustainable autonomous transport solutions used on land, air, and sea. Degnes has several years of experience within different clusters and over 20 years of experience with innovation and product development from various types of industry. Both as CEO of Techni AS and as consultant in innovation processes for multiple companies. As the cluster manager Degnes is overall responsible for all activities within the cluster and works with partners across the nation as well as across borders. Degnes earned a master’s degree in industrial design from Oslo and has complimentary courses in Innovation, Management and Democracy.

Ketil Solvik-Olsen is the CEO of Seabrokers Fundamentering and central in the Drill & Drive project. He is aiming at improving mobility and the environment by using technology and challenging conventional solutions.

Ketil served five years as the Minister of Transportation and Communication in the Norwegian government. His main focus was to improve digital and physical infrastructure, with special attention to the role of technology in providing better and cleaner transportation services.

Prior to that, he served 8 years in the Parliament, dealing with Energy, Environment and Finance. Prior to his political work, Ketil worked within maritime and automotive industries, and today he also serves on the board of a variety of mobility/technology start-up companies.