About Me

Yep that's me, grinning a selfportrait at 3000 meters after climbing for a couple of hours on touring skis...
This blog is a kind-of-corporate blog, i.e. Sig's thoughts unfiltered. That would be the same thoughts and ideas that - end of the day - reflects what Thingamy does.

Here's my complete and unabridged CV if you'd be bothered:

1952: Born in Norway
1955: Started skiing.
1959: Started school.
1961-1964: Downhill ski racing.
1970: Thrown out of school. (Actually, was asked to redo a year due to extreme laziness. Declined and did my exams outside the public system despite having to do three years all over in a year. F*** the system being the driving force.)
1971: Accepted at University of Fribourg, Switzerland, to study Economics. Spent three days there and decided economics was not for me. Told parents, father not happy. Jumped into car and drove homewards. Took a right instead of left somewhere in Switzerland and ended up in Zürich. Stayed 6 years there. Mother waited at ferry landing in Oslo for a week until she heard I was safe and sound and had stayed 1500 kms further south.
1977: Graduated as Diplomierter Chemieingenieur der ETH. (Master in Chemical Engineering.)
1977-78: Had a job (last one working for somebody) at Dow Chemical as technical service and development engineer for low density polyethylene in Tarragona, Spain and Horgen, Switzerland.
1978-79: Did my MBA at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.
1979: Had a few job interviews. No job offers. Suspect the answer to "what I want to do?" always being "not to work for anybody but myself" did me in.
1981-87: Did bootstrapping, later called LBO with a friend. All kind of companies, mostly production companies. First one bought at P/E of 1.4 and with zero equity. Good deal. Last one was given us for free as it had 17 years of losses and a 50% negative margin. Restructured, had creditors eat their losses, injected some capital. Then it burned down. Slightly uphill battle thereafter, gave that one up after two years. Good lesson, expensive though.
1992: Got myself a snowboard and sagging trousers. Found a learning curve on snow again, and had kids go "shooot, you're old!" in the lift line.
1988-2002: M&A consultancy with another friend. Advised many large and small cross border deals. Good fun.
1998-today: Involved in many startups including Yacht brokerage and Games developer.
1989: Started fatherhood. Now proud father of three great boys not too different from father in attitude to life.
2000-today: Main focus on new, wacky take on enterprise software. Thingamy Ltd.
2001: Started bike racing. Great fun, results so-so.
2002: Racing better, started winning.
2002: Moved to South of France. Better weather, food more serious. Cycling great year round. Good place to be, people come visit all the time.

Feel free to call/skype me, but remember that I'm at Central European Time, that's six hours ahead of you New Yorkers - hate to get calls in the middle of the night.
+33 60308 4200 is my mobile number.
sigurd.rinde is my Skype.
sigrind52 is my AIM / iChat.

More here.