Team and partners

Katharina R. Asting

Founder & CEO

Katharina is a seasoned leader with operational experience from technology companies both multinationals and start-ups. She has worked with “profit for purpose” investments in private companies and local PE funds in Africa and Asia through Norfund. Consulting tech-startups early phase is also part of her experience. With her passion for people and human rights she has served in boards of several NGOs set up to eradicate poverty. Her board experience from private companies is also extensive.

With her analytical skills, Katharina sees the big picture, thinks innovative and follows projects through. Travelling the world for business, for NGOs and for pleasure, she has built extensive network in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and USA. Her network is utilized to find new partners for businesses, and to connect growth- businesses with investors.

Born in Norway, she has a Masters in Electrical Engineering (Siv. Ing) from the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology (NTNU) and her Masters in Business and Administration (MBA) from Middlebury Institute of International Studies, USA. Katharina is eager to support individuals on utilizing their potential and she is currently pursuing certification to be a coach.

INNOKRA was founded by Katharina to make a difference, as she believes that private companies have an important  role in solving global challenges. INNOKRA believes that by supporting select of companies with competence, operational experience and guidance the impact can be reinforced.

Åsa Jarskog

Åsa Jarskog has an MBA from Lund University and Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, and almost 30 years working experience within Business and Leadership Development in over 50 countries in 5 continents. A skilled trainer and certified coach and a much demanded mentor, working with prominent leaders throughout the world, Åsa is CEO of Global Leadership for Sustainable Development and President of the Swedish Southern African Chamber of Commerce.

Åsa has worked with prominent leaders, including Dalai Lama, Koffi Annan, Klaus Schwab and Nelson Mandela, and has trained many successful leaders in over 55 countries. She regularly runs leadership expeditions in various parts of the world

Åsas tailor-made Strategy training includes all important aspects from analysis of past and present, prioritization and strategy formulation, with an emphasis on strategy implementation through leadership, motivation and communication.

Åsa believes in value-based leadership, speed of trust and using sub-concious wisdom to reach goals. Her training methods are designed to reach maximum learning by anchoring the learnings in your head, body and spirit. An interactive combination of theory and practice, mental and physical exercises integrating lectures, discussions, role-plays, hiking, yoga and meditation cater for a complete, long lasting learning experience and a memory for life.

Leo Helland

Leo is senior executive director with a broad international CEO experience from different energy and environmental business areas. He has been part of starting up companies working in the environmental industry and successfully brought their products and services to the international markets. In doing so, he also worked within the Securities, equity and the financial markets.

He has experience from responsibilities as Board of Directors and Chair of the Board. He holds a Master degree in Executive Management from Norwegian School of Business (Handelshøyskolen BI).

Leo has built a large international network and good relations through his professional work.

Leo has gained a comprehensive experience through executing business in markets around the globe – these are The US, Canada, Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

As a professional he has had the responsibilities of developing new and innovative environmental technologies. Among these is offshore wind-power.

Today, Leo is the CEO of an international company that develop technologies aimed for the environmental markets. This includes biotechnology for purification of both municipal and industrial wastewater. These environmental technologies bring the water back to nature, and as such is beneficial for the health of our planet, animals and humans.

We like to work with technologies that provide sustainable life.

Signe-Marie Hernes Bjerke

Signe-Marie has her experience as management consultant in DNV GL (Det Norske Veritas) through 16 years. DNV GL’s strong vision of Global Impact for safe and sustainable future” has motivated her. She will now use her collaboration-toolbox and facilitation skills to empower groups of people to solve global challenges and make a better world. Signe Marie is also a motivational speaker and trainer in a wide range of courses.

As an experienced management consultant and a professional facilitator, Signe Marie is used to dive into complex business challenges. She believes that it is the group that holds the power to build the future. Time after time she has experienced that with the right collaborative methods a team can solve the most challenging problems and identify the most innovative solutions.

By education she holds a M.Sc. of Informatics from the University of Oslo. She is also a service management expert, and has a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt education. Signe-Marie has further master class in Facilitation and is on her way to become a certified coach.

Runa Klock

Runa holds a Masters Degree in Design from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts is Norway, and Entrepreneurship Studies from University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oslo. Runa is  dedicated and thorough designer with analytical skills and an inventive mindset, ever curious and glad to take on new challenges.

She now operates from her design studio in Oslo. Runa Klock’s practice extends beyond product design to encompass food, spaces and interdisciplinary projects and entrepreneurship. Runa’s work is characterized by openness for cooperation with people in a variety of disciplines, and several of her projects have a strong social profile. The courage to reconceive the familiar, to break boundaries and to collaborate freely is the hallmarks of Runas’s work. She has initiated cooperation with inmates in the main prison in Oslo deigning and making tableware for the luxury hotel The Thief. She is cooperating with Moving Mamas; creating work for immigrant mums, and is one of the driving forces behind the brand Bokhari. Bokhari produces textiles from surplus materials in Pakistan, sold in Norway and financing the LAMS school providing free education to 700 children.

Runa has developed and designed several exhibitions for clients such as The Nobel Peace center, The Jewish Museum in Oslo and the Natural History Museum, giving her great experience in dissemination and making complex stories available and understandable to a wide public. She has arranged workshops ranging from fooddesign to materials, and has thought both at KHIO (Oslo National College of Art and Design), Faculdade de belas Artes (Porto) and will be visiting Professor at the Nagoya University of arts in 2017.

Runa is the co-founder of Epleslang and Retour; both social entrepreneurs producing high quality products; Apple juice and bikes, made from surplus resources and by people outside the regular labour market. Epleslang was awarded social entrepreneur of the year in 2013 and won the Honor Award for Design Excellence in 2015.

Runa´s objects are produced by acclaimed producers like NewWorks, Nola and Fora Form and have been shown at numerous international exhibitions and fairs.

Runa is a board member in Karupa AS, Syftesfabrikken AB, Epleslang AS, Retour AS and the Klubben, an organisation for designers in Norway. She is also member in the Professional committee of NIL (Norwegian interior architects and furniture designers’ association).

Kjerand Nesvik

Kjerand Nesvik is a dedicated professional with more than 17 years as a consultant in strategic communication and brand-narratives. With the unique combination of Political Science from University of Bergen and Fine Art from Universidad de Complutense of Madrid, he holds both a creative and an analytic perspective.

Nesvik has acquired a broad strategic, tactical and operational experience from multiple business areas like culture and media, private industry, non-profit organizations and public sector. As a seasoned speaker and through workshops he has covered topics like storytelling, brand architecture and rhetoric.

Knowledge is power, but stories are even more powerful. Nesvik has a particularly trained eye to identifying the essence of an organization and can aid to refine a vison, articulate a goal through an engaging narrative that has an impact, ultimately transforming the vison in to action.

CoachTeam - House of Leadership

CoachTeam – House of Leadership is a team of resourceful coaches and consultants, united through one shared goal: optimizing and improving self-management and leadership abilities via workshops, seminars, team-processes and coaching.

In addition to this, CoachTeam runs one of the countries leading schools within training and development of leaders, managers and coaching education. Their executive/leader- and coach education «Creative Leadership and Coaching» has existed since 2002 and more than 1000 people have completed the program.

The education is now being carried out in collaboration with the. University of Agder and the completed study program gives 45 credits.