The head of Norway’s $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund, Nicolai Tangen, said his side gig as podcast host is boosting job applications, opening corporate doors and getting employees to consider a mid-day nap.
Takeaways from the podcast — from how to take a good break during working hours to the benefits of using simpler language for corporate communications — are being adopted in house at Norges Bank Investment Management, Tangen said in an interview Dec. 19. Interview clips are often aired and discussed at the fund’s weekly investment meetings, he added.
“It’s interesting how podcasts have gained a lot of traction,” Tangen said. “It’s long, it’s intellectually more demanding, you get deeper into the topic and it’s a more personal medium.”
Tangen has pursued an expansive communications strategy since taking over as chief executive officer four years ago, ranging from explaining how the fund works on Norwegian kids TV, to pushing his staff into the limelight.
The podcast first aired in March 2022, featuring an interview with former BP CEO Bernard Looney. High profile guests like Bill Gates and legendary investor Stan Druckenmiller have helped propelled downloads over 6.5 million since it first aired and seen the number of listens double this year compared with 2023, according to internal statistics.
Interviews have not all gone seamlessly. During a live recording with Elon Musk on X Spaces, the audio repeatedly cut out, leaving both executives speaking past one another. Tangen subsequently asked Musk to attend the fund’s annual seminar in 2025, an offer that drew criticism from Norwegian politicians who warned that such an invite reflected negatively on the fund.
Interviews due to be aired in 2025 include Blackstone’s Jon Gray, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet and Michael Miebach of Mastercard. With writer and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell, Tangen said he discussed the question, “why do rich people complain more than poor people.”
