Working at Nevion – Q&A with Svein Håvard Haugen

Meet Svein Håvard Haugen, Vice President of Partner Sales at Nevion, based in Norway.

Welcome to our newest series of Q&A with the Architects! At Nevion, we’re proud of our people and we have built up a great global team of professionals, with knowledge and expertise in broadcasting, telecoms, IT, hardware, software, baseband and IP network technology.

In this new series, we wanted to give you the chance to get to know some of our Architects personally. To kick things off, we spoke to Svein Håvard Haugen, about his time at Nevion so far, the culture of the business, and his proudest achievements to date.

What attracted you to join Nevion as part of your career journey?

The fact that Nevion plays an active role in making products was particularly attractive to me. There are a lot of consultancy roles out there that don’t involve product creation and that didn’t fit with what I wanted to do. Seeing products or solutions out in the market that you know you’ve had direct involvement in bringing to life is a satisfying feeling. For anyone that’s watched the Olympics, the technology I work on is likely to be involved in the broadcast, and that’s pretty cool!

How has your role progressed whilst you’ve been at Nevion?

My progression at Nevion has seen me quickly take on a variety of different roles, and I think that’s important as I didn’t want to sit still in my career and have always been determined to initiate positive change. I began as a hardware engineer before going on to then run the R&D department, and then managing portfolios as a product manager.

I’m now responsible for the global partner community, managing the sale of products and services through ours partners in different countries while I continue to work on solution architecture, helping to create systems and guiding customers to our solutions.

What three words would you use to describe your role at Nevion?

For me, my experience at Nevion can be summed up with the following words: Freedom, trust and creativity. The trust that the organization shows me goes hand-in-hand with the freedom that I’m given to make key decisions. The organization also promotes and nurtures creativity as part of our working culture, both in the sense of how we work on projects but also in how our services and products are marketed.

What interested you about working in the broadcast industry?

The broadcast industry was a sector that I originally had little knowledge of when I first entered it, but once I was in, I found it incredibly interesting. Although it’s a global industry, it’s still quite small, so I’ve got to know a lot of people really well from various countries. It therefore has the feel of an intimate community of like-minded professionals working together.

Can you tell us about a project you have worked on during your time at Nevion that you are most proud of?

To cite just one recent project, I was head architect for designing the entire radio network for the nation of Finland, consisting of 30 different channels. The project proved be an effective collaboration between professionals at the business, which I think is fantastic as in many large projects it can be easy for conflict to materialize between departments. While a few challenges and bumps in the road were inevitable, the project successfully launched in January 2021 following 12 months of work. I feel that much of Nevion’s success in these projects is down to the fact that employees at our business feel that they are noticed and valued, which feeds into our collaborative nature.

What is your favorite thing about working for Nevion?

My favorite thing about working for Nevion is the people. Like many industries, we’ve not been able to see our colleagues in-person for much of the pandemic, and it’s made me realize how much I miss the interaction. Although we’ve of course maintained contact from home, I’m looking forward to going back to the office so I can see them again. I think the fact that most of the people who have left the business previously have eventually returned is a testament to how great it is to work here.

What new innovation excites you the most in the broadcasting world?

True remote production and production from home are particularly exciting innovations that I believe we’ll see much more of following the pandemic, and I think they will change what we see on television in the long-term. The cost of travelling to large-scale events has traditionally been too high and has had a negative impact on the environment, so I think that more remote broadcasting projects will help change that.