About
My career started in Norway, where I enjoyed the early days of being a consultant. It was a great experience in a fast-paced environment. This propelled me to take on leadership roles at Oracle’s development group. Early on, I recognized that I had a natural drive and was energized by results in driving change and growth. I successfully led impactful, transformative cloud and digital programs for employees, partners, and customers across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. I was recognized for driving strategic and operations initiatives to optimize, simplify, grow, and mature organizations. Some of these programs at Oracle included: establishing a user customer community, initiating a notification system for customer release updates, transforming Oracle’s enablement strategy as the applications software went from on-premise to cloud, and modernizing the webinar learning program in partnership with Oracle University.
At Equinix (a global data center company with 240 data centers in 27 countries), I was hired to establish Business Operations for Product as a strategic and operational function to transform Product into digital. As part of the gaps/needs discovery, I grew a multi-disciplinary team from 12 to 60 focused on: Shaping the strategy for Product, Establishing a new Operating rhythm and cadence with a cross-functional engagement model, Optimizing program management of SDLC E2E, Creating processes for new product introductions (NPI) and continuous release updates (CU), Establishing Agile CoE with appointed scrum leads, Standing up Tech Documentation & Readiness for external consumption, Creating an end user Community, Establishing internal employee communications and change mgmt programs, Initiating customer release and ad-hoc notifications cadence, Scaling analytics, & Maturing FinOps. As a result, Business Operations became a force multiplier for the Product organization, Product Marketing, Sales Ops, Marketing, Legal, Partner channels, Finance, Talent, and HR.
I was brought on by the CEO and the board of Lightspeed Networks to establish a cross functional operating system instilling discipline and structure to prepare LS for growth and scale. I served on the board and three committees: audit, finance & risk, environment, social & governance, and operations – all backed by a private equity firm out of Toronto, Canada (Instar). As part of my role, I oversaw legal, contracts and risk mgmt, HR, and business and strategic operations. I introduced the Enterpreneurial Operating System as a concept to help streamline the way we work and operate and a proven method based on real companies. Spearheaded a 5-year strategic plan to accelerate growth and expand its residential services and
customers by 10x. Pivoted to realign the strategy focused on payback and neutral cash flow focused on
profitability in the near term; one vector to achieve these goals resulted in a 45% staff reduction in 6 mos.
C-Suite, Head of Strategy and Business Operations
Results-oriented and seasoned manager with a track record of successfully leading teams and overseeing intricate projects.
- Email: katrine.haugerud@gmail.com
- Website: www.example.com
- Phone: +1 650 504 5149
- City: Redwood City, California, USA
- Degree: MBA
- Industry: Cloud, Data Center, Enterprise SW, Saas, Technology, Telecom
- Specialty: Transformative growth and scale
- Interested in: Creating significance and winning
Dedicated to fostering a culture of excellence, emphasizing quality, service, and profitability. Adept at assisting individuals, leaders, and teams in surpassing goals through a passion for strategic planning, decisive decision-making, and effective problem-solving. Thrives on a sense of urgency, ownership, and unwavering personal accountability.
Who Am I
Professional, mentor, team player, EOS integrator, mother, wife, friend, former athlete, dual citizenship
Years+ of proven leadership
Competitive Sports Cross country skiing and Rowing
Key Passions project management, winning, integrating, transform, create clarity
Person Team and 1,000+ virtual team members
Skills
Essential skills (self-assessed) crucial for steering and managing business and departments of all sizes.
Resume
C-suite / Strategic Execution / Transformation / Value Creation / Team Health
Sumary
Katrine Haugerud
Experienced and results-driven executive with a proven track record in team leadership and project management. Committed to cultivating a culture of excellence, quality, and profitability, I excel in strategic planning, decisive decision-making, and problem-solving to surpass goals. Thriving on a sense of urgency, ownership, and unwavering personal accountability, I bring a dynamic leadership approach to drive success.
- Master Business Administration with professional experience from Software and Tech companies
- Consulting, R&D, Product Mgmt, Leadership, Board, Private Equity
Education
Master of Business Administration
1987 - 1991
BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
BA and MBA in 4.5 years
Master of Business Administration
1991
W.P. Carey School of Business, ASU, Arizona
Selected for exchange program
High School Diploma
1984 - 1987
Eidsvoll Videregående Skole, Norway
High School Exchange Program
1983 - 1984
Chetek High School, Wisconsin
Professional Experience
Chief of Staff
Jan 2023 - Dec 2023
Lightspeed Networks, Portland, OR
- Recruited by the CEO and board to establish a cross-functional operating system.
- Implemented an operating cadence, including Enterpreneurial Operating System (EOS) for the C-suite, with visibility and goals at senior mgmt level.
- Spearheaded a growth strategy aligned with our mission, played a key role on the board and three committees, and managed legal, contracts, risk, HR, and business operations.
- Successfully led the creation and execution of a 5-year strategy.
VP Business Operations, Product
2018 - 2022
Equinix, Redwood City, CA
- Hired to build Business Operations with the purpose to optimize and prepare the Product department for the digital transformation.
- Grew the core ops team from 12 to 60, fostered a Team 1 safe culture and initiated diversity and inclusion workstreams across the 1,500+ person Product team.
- Shaped the strategy, optimized program management, and matured FinOps. This was all done through effective collaboration and partnership with cross functional team members from across the entire company.
- Centralized tools and practices, reducing costs by 64%, scaled analytics, established a development center in Poland contributing to $30 million yearly savings.
- Business Operations quickly became a catalyst and contributed to a 48% revenue increase in 3 yrs.
VP Program Management
1998 - 2018
Oracle, Redwood City, CA
- Led a team of 12 to successfully execute two key division-wide initiatives; 1. Customer community resulting in 470K active community members and 2. Digitized a global learning platform leverages by 50K unique users spanning customers and partners.
- Orchestrated a central strategy to transform Oracle's On-premise offerings to Cloud for all SaaS product lines. Led the cloud readiness transformation for 35 SaaS products, scaling assets to match quarterly cloud releases and modernized customer release notifications, resulting in a 50% reduction in customer inquiries with the added benefit of increased customer satisfaction, and self serve of knowledge through timely release information.
- Managed DBI (Daily Business Intelligence) for Oracle's E-Business Suite (HCM, CRM, ERP, SCM). Initiated the product by establishing 20 KPIs, securing sign-off from Applications EVP and Oracle's CEO.
Functional ERP Consultant, Nordic Countries
1995 - 1997
Oracle, Lysaker, Norway
- Became the first billable consultant on the new graphical user interface by training in England for five weeks and becoming certified on implementing Financials, Projects, and Procurement applications.
Office Manager
1994 - 1995
Multi Media Norge, Oslo, Norway
- Engaged by the Board to oversee the startup by engaging with the CEO and the team on day-to-day activities to identify and optimize sales and distribution systems opportunities by reviewing sales activities, P&L, and customer logs.Closed the company by year two by presenting evidence of corruption and fictive sales data.
Office Manager
1991 - 1994
Nielsen & Co, Oslo, Norway
- Implemented state-of-the-art retail clothing software system to simplify the packing and distribution process by reducing costs by 50% by improving accuracy of customer orders and speed of shipments. Led negotiations with distributors, freight companies and manufacturers world-wide; saving costs of 50K MoM by proving gaps by preparing detailed comparison charts of planned to actuals./li>
- Recommended to the owners to eliminate a non-profitable product line and save costs by $500K by eliminating the sales teams (and myself) and moving the business to a less expensive showroom (they accepted the recommendation)
Insights
Beyond my professional roles, I am a dedicated advocate for growth and a firm believer in continuous learning. My experiences contribute to a holistic understanding of who I am beyond my career.
What's my story?
After living 25 years in the US on a green card, it is a great feeling to embrace dual citizenship finally! May 8th, 2022 marked the day for this milestone - I'm forever grateful for my past growing up in Norway, present spending most of my adult life in California, and opportunities ahead for my family and me as dual citizens. Since arriving in the US with a 3-month-old baby daughter, my husband and I have navigated how to start all over again with no credit history or social network. We juggled our careers while bringing up two daughters and spending as much time in Norway as possible to allow grandparents' and granddaughters bonding time. While the downpayment for a house in Silicon Valley was astronomical, we kept our house north of Oslo, which is now our precious vacation home. When thinking about the career I've had and have, I'm certain that I made the right choice to be a working mom. I've managed to do so by striving to be fully present for my company and team during work hours and fully present with my family during 'non-work hours.' This, I believe, has energized me for both 'jobs.' I've loved every bit of my career by positively impacting the business and its people, bringing my true self to work every day, and engaging with the right people to challenge and help drive change, structure, and scale inclusively and sustainably. I want to continue to make a difference and continue to learn and thrive so I can grow as a human and a professional.
What is Business Chemistry, and how has this knowledge shaped my career?
Most every team is composed of diverse team members. I’ve found the Business Chemistry survey and methodology easy to implement to optimize the outcome of the team. There are four main styles: Pioneer, Integrator, Driver, and Guardian. For more info, this is a quick read: https://hbr.org/2017/03/pioneers-drivers-integrators-and-guardians. For me, personally, I’ve always been curious and innovative, and the driver and guardian traits in me allows me to pursue the dominant pioneer and integrator traits to keep creating and scaling programs and practices, employ cost-effective solutions aligned with company goals, and create and contribute to a great working environment, all while maximizing ROI and revenue. As a pioneer I value the big picture, am adaptable, spontaneous, and imaginative. As an integrator I’m empathic, relationship oriented, diplomatic and intrinsically motivated.
What is Team One?
I’m passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion, and I truly care about my team and the virtual team members. I enjoy the collaboration among functions and teams and the opportunity to bring out the best in all team members. I’m a strong believer in teamwork and investing in teams. It starts with finding the right team members, but then you need to grow them and empower them to scale the team’s output and outcome. I have first hand experience and results from what a game changer it is once you invest in your team with coaching, problem solving together, training, and empathy. Even applying some of this investment into the virtual team members results in better and faster results. So what is Team One? It’s a philosophy brought to life by Pat Lencioni. It is so powerful once you truly commit to it. One practice I’ve found to be extremely successful is to empower your direct reports so that they have each other's back, understand in broad terms everyone’s charter, and can then more easily resolve issues or misunderstandings while bringing the right people togethers. This is a major time saver and makes the team into a high performing team. I’d be happy to share my story with you - anytime…
What do you do for fun?
Experience new places, Cross Country Skiing, Water activities, Hike, Hot Yoga, Watching sports, Hanging with family and friends, Interior design and decorating, 'Hygge', Fantasy drama shows, Cooking, and Baking.
What's on your bucket list?
Attend a Manchester City soccer match in England, Make a sustainable backyard, Hike Grand Canyon, Visit 10 National Parks in the US, Visit exotic places to snorkel, Visit 10 new states or countries, Attend New Year's Eve concert in Vienna.
How do I work?
1. Listen with curiosity to understand the audience and root cause
2. Assess and ideate on approach
3. Execute and iterate – establish cadence for cross-functional collaboration and input
4. Create optionality – keeping it lean, simple, and innovative by removing noise 5. Frequent communication leveraging effective channels
Mottos and Beliefs!
If you don’t solve for Today, there may not be a Tomorrow / Act today, secure tomorrow
Make changes fast and deep. This creates optionality quicker.
Quality over quantity. Sometimes less is more. / More isn’t always better. Sometimes more is just more.
Don’t mistake motion for progress
Critical to have the right person in the right seat // Ensuring the right match of skills and roles is pivotal for success
To infuse change throughout the org, there has to be transparency and candor, quickly and often. The most successful orgs do this top down, bypassing the middle (control the narrative, educate middle management)
What insights have I gained from my career?
1. To produce the right outcome, activities must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based
2. Have the right people in the right seat with accountability for proper execution
3. Ensure everyone is on the right track and equally committed
4. Transparency and honesty are critical; don't solely rely on middle management to communicate downstream
5. Don't mistake motion for progress; meaningful activities drive true advancement.
Specifically, what do I excel in?
1. Understanding where the company is struggling and identifing areas for cost optimization and/or revenue opportunities
2. Quickly assess the challenges/problems holding us back – suggest change and enact change by making decisions
3. Project Manage and manage to KPIs and OKRs
4. Keep every apprised of progress, risks, and next steps to reach goals
What are my top experiences?
Seasoned business operations executive with over three decades of diverse leadership positions. Expertise from global and mid-size companies within Europe and North America. implementation of tools/tech and systems to fix significant challenges across Operations, Admin, HR, Legal/Risk, StratOps, FinOps, and RevenueOps. Besides leading roles as VP from Equinix and Oracle, I have Consulting and contracting experience and hands-on knowledge of Private equity and Board and committees. Furthermore I have intimate knowledge of division shutdowns and downsizing, and experience from building and growing new departments and solutions, and transformations within departments and from On Prem to SaaS, and Saas companies transitioning to Enterprise.
Career Highlights!
Project Management: Highly skilled in establishing new programs, instilling effective operating cadence
including project and change management, and fostering accountability across startups and enterprises.
Scaling: Transitioned small and mid-size departments into enterprise scale at both Equinix and Oracle.
Customer Community: Initiated a community for Oracle’s cloud customers; 470K users as of 2024.
5-year Plan: Pivoted to realign strategy focused on payback and neutral cash flow; 45% staff change in 6 mos.
Location Strategy: Established a product development center in Poland; yielding cost savings of $30M yearly.
Testimonials
Below is a few testimonials representative of a broad functional and collaborative span.
Katrine is a master at "keeping the trains running on time" which acts as an efficiency force multiplier for the rest of the team. Prior to Katrine joining at Equinix my team and I were spending inordinate amounts of time pulling together and formatting roadmaps, pulling ad hoc reporting and analysis and wasting time with inefficient product documentation updates. Katrine systematically identified pockets of inefficiency, applied process and rigor to automate and systematize and helped us all work more efficiently in the process.
Bill Long
Chief Product Officer, Zayo Group
I worked closely with Katrine at Equinix to interlock between the Product and GTM Operations organizations. This was no easy feat in a rapidly transforming business and she was a fantastic partner, especially in helping to align various executives stakeholders in alignment of key corporate objectives and 'move the needle' initiatives. I will truly miss working with Katrine as her integrity, passion for business transformation and compassionate leadership are 2nd to none. Highly recommend. Any organization that is able to bring Katrine on-board should consider themselves extremely fortunate indeed!
Whitney Merrill
Vice President, Equinix
I had the pleasure of working with Katrine in my last gig, and she was a bright spot in my tenure there. Katrine is a kind, fearless leader with an eye for strategy and transformation. Her ability to bring orthogonal viewpoints to the table and align them towards product and process excellence made all our jobs easier, and she was a fierce UX advocate. Smart, forward-thinking, and always asking the right questions at the right time, Katrine was the partner I turned to often for advice and context. I hope I get the chance to work with her again.
Scott Garsed-Donnelly, MS MBA
Product Design Leader + Creative Technologist
Contact
Here's my contact details - feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, drop me an email, or send me a text. Let's connect!
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrine-haugerud-mba/
Email:
katrine.haugerud@gmail.com
Call:
+1 650 504 5149