Corporate Management

Why the CEO of the world's first sovereign wealth fund is a podcaster (with Musk and Fink)

It is called 'In Good Company' and is the best example of a podcast hosted by a thoroughbred banker. But many other top managers are trying their hand at it. Here's how

by Enrico Marro

9 October 2024

Aggiungi Il Sole 24 Ore
ai preferiti su Google

Nicolai Tangen, ceo del fondo sovrano norvegese. Ma anche podcaster.

2' min read

2' min read

Among his guests were Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Elon Musk of Tesla and X. David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, Larry Fink of Blackstone,Jane Fraser of Citi and Sergio Ermotti of Ubs. His podcast with the impressive three-quarter-hour interviews is called "In Good Company", a play on words between "in a good company" and "in good company".

But Nicolai Tangen is no ordinary podcaster. By trade, he is the managing director of the world's largest sovereign wealth fund: Norges Bank Investment Management, which administers something like $1.6 trillion and owns about 1.4 per cent of the world's listed companies.

The fortunes of the sovereign podcast

But then why the podcast? The idea was to explain to Norwegian citizens (who actually own the sovereign wealth fund where the huge state profits from oil extraction are invested)which companies their money goes into and why. The success, however, went far beyond the Scandinavian borders.

"In Good Company" now boasts more than five million total downloads and many indirect benefits, including a boom of notoriety from Norges Bank Investment Management and an avalanche of job applications sent by bankers in New York and London. "The only one who initially disdained the podcast in question was my wife," laughs the 58-year-old Tangen, also known in his home country as a fine art collector.

Managers' race for podcasts

A podcast made by a ceo. An isolated case? Far from it.By now, for savvy managers and entrepreneurs, podcasts are becoming the rage. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, has fun with his Masters of Scale. Steven Bartlett, British serial entrepreneur, created the famous The Diary Of A Ceo, focused on business and personal development.

And let's not forget 'All-In', led by a group of venture capitalists specialising in tech. Sooner or later, fashion will also arrive in Italy, we can bet on it.

Chat format between friends

Be careful, though, because we are not talking here about the usual corporate podcast that everyone does nowadays (even in our country). Here it is the untouchable corporate boss, the galactic megapresident, who is putting himself on the line.

But that is precisely the beauty of it: the register chosen by this patrol of enlightened CEOs is informal, colloquial, welcoming and relaxed, capable of 'warming up' the important guest (think Nadella, Solomon, Fink or Ermotti, not Musk because he doesn't need to) while leaving room for personal storytelling, jokes and banter included.

A chat among friends, in short, rather than the usual disintermediation of once journalistic content that has become a stiff and glacial corporate 'show'.

The relaxation format is liked, liked a lot. The audience rewards informality, free speech, but also depth of content, the competence of interviewer and interviewee. It is also an intriguing way ofreaching out to the new generations, increasingly distant from traditional media formats. And a chance to hear the unthinkable: the world's number one sovereign wealth fund joking with the irrepressible Elon, number one in free speech.

Enrico Marro
Scheda autore
Trust project

Brand connect

I prossimi eventi

Tutti gli eventi

Notizie e approfondimenti sugli avvenimenti politici, economici e finanziari.