Private sector companies

I help private companies to improve, redefine, and capture more value from, their strategic processes. This can happen through a combination of desk research and stakeholder engagement, through interim manage-ment, or just through close dialogue with the management team and through facilitating strategic journeys towards any clearly defined goal, whether focused on strengthening function areas or procedures, through clarifying brand and communication platforms and strategies, to undertaking actual turn-around processes.

Public sector organisations

My role when working for public sector organisations varies, from facilitating strategy or change processes to developing and deploying campaigns, training programmes and various initiatives - such as helping the Greek Industrial Property Organisation to build awareness of the role of, and value creation through, design in Greece, facilitating annual strategy workshops for City of Copenhagen's Innovation House, or developing and running workshops and training courses for the regional Business Oulu in Finland.

Non-governmental organisations

Having spent more than a decade as CEO of a trade organisation, I have gathered some valuable experience at how such organisations operate, and how strategies are built, including public affairs, policy making and advocacy processes. This experience has benefitted my work for organisations, such as the Bureau of Euro-pean Design Associations (BEDA), the Danish trade union for architects and designers (FAOD), the Danish trade association and network platform, Design denmark, the Norwegian Center for Design and Architec-ture (DOGA), or smaller organisations like the creative industries hub, Nesoddparkenin the Oslo region in Norway.

From 2014 to 2021, as an honorary position, I precided over the Norwegian-Danish Chamber of Commerce  and Culture in Copenhagen (NDCC), and from 2020, I have been on the board of the Danish Design Panel, appointed by Design denmark, whose Governance Board, I've been a member of since 2016.

This is what some clients have said about our collaboration:

"Steinar Valade-Amland has been in charge of the process of developing a new growth strategy for Triagonal and he has driven the process with a clear focus, enthusiasm and knowledge, and his background in the design industry has been indispensable in the entire process. Through workshops facilitated by Steinar we have managed to find Triagonals DNA and with that in mind developed a strategy for future growth and external communication in general. Steinar has transformed the strategy into an operational plan with specific and manageable objectives. Over all, we have benefited greatly from working with Steinar in all phases of the process - from facilitating workshops to strategic planning."

Tina Ravbjerg, Partner, Triagonal Information Design - Denmark

"Thorough and encompassing, the resulting report, consisting of a thorough analysis based on desk­top research and utilization of Steinar's wide-reaching network within the business, as well as a focus group conducted to analyse and assess the potential for market entry from a competitive point of view, gave an insightful review of opportunities and potential pitfalls in the Danish market. All in all, we were very pleased with the report Steinar produced, and will likely use him again for similar engagements."

Øyvind Bjørnstad, Business Controller, Vestre A/S – Norway

"At design-people we have benefited greatly from the strategic sparring with Steinar Valade-Amland. We have received qualified sparring around positioning as a design agency, which services to prioritize and how to communicate these. Thus, his consultancy has contributed directly to the positive development design-people is experiencing."

Klaus Schroeder, Partner / CEO – design-people – Denmark

"It was great pleasure having you at the workshop yesterday! Thank you for the insights, well formulated comments, and good contribution to the team dynamics."

Karina Vissonova, Business Developer, Velux A/S – Denmark

"Steinar's contribution to our effort to promote Greek Design has proven more than valuable. His inspiration, experience and expertise has helped us make many important steps in the field of design - both as an organization, but also as a country. We still receive positive feedback after both our exhibition in 2013 and after the series of seminars in 2016. We hope that we can continue our joint efforts to develop and promote design in Greece, as we trust that we always achieve our goals when working together with Steinar - for one basic reason; he knows every important aspect of design, he truly believes in it and he really loves it…"

Eri Manousou, Head of Communication, Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation

"I have worked with Steinar on different projects for BEDA since 2012. In that experience I have benefitted more than once from Steinar's lengthy and qualitative experience in the European Design community and his ability to reach out to a vast and rich network that includes influential policy makers, lobbyists and trade associations in relation to creative industry and design practitioners. Steinar's deliveries are of consistently high quality and relevance, whether in the form of surveys and follow-up reports, facilitating workshops or developing policy papers and strategy recommendations. Therefore I warmly recommend working with Steinar in any project related to the European Creative Industries."

Kitty de Jong, Board Member, BEDA ( Bureau of European Design Associations )