Product leadership and venture building for regulated B2B

For 15 years I've built and grown new products and business areas inside corporates, scale-ups and early-stage ventures. My main focus is B2B SaaS and AI/tech-powered services in industrial and regulated sectors: energy, fintech, proptech, construction and engineering. Markets where buyers are cautious, cycles are long, and incumbents are being forced to digitize.

I work as a product leader, with a background that also spans strategy, design, and venture building. That mix lets me shape the problem, set direction, and work sleeves-up with designers and engineers to ship and test something real.

Recent work includes building new tech ventures for Wilhelmsen and DNV (from idea to paying customers in seven months), and business model redesign for Standards Norway.

Skin in the game matters, so I also build and invest in ventures of my own.

Hovgaard Ventures is one operator, built to deliver like a team. I work with AI agents across research, analysis, prototyping and validation, which means the thinking moves faster and the output is tested harder before it reaches you. When a project needs more hands, I bring in senior designers and engineers from a trusted network I’ve worked with for years. You get one partner and one point of accountability, with the capacity of a small studio behind it.

Erlend Hovgaard, product leader and venture builder, in an office

Work experience

  • Founder, Hovgaard Ventures (2025– ): Fractional product leadership, venture building and angel investments.

  • Partner, Reodor Studios (2021–2025): Scaling the studio, leading innovation and venture building projects with corporates and startups.

  • Director, Business & Strategy, Designit (2015–2021): Team manager, headed service and business design projects across industries.

  • Consultant, Product & Growth, Creuna/Knowit (2011–2015): Consulting within B2B strategy, growth and product.

Education

  • MA, Service Design and Innovation,
    Laurea University

  • MBA, Strategy & Entrepreneurship,
    Quantic School of Business & Technology

  • Diploma, Qualitative Research,
    London School of Economics

  • BSc, Management, Bayes Business School

What you get

  • Product leadership at every stage. Building new products, fixing stalled growth, and scaling what works, as your interim or fractional CPO.

  • Productizing expertise. Turning what your specialists know into software products with recurring revenue.

  • Speed without losing rigor. AI-augmented discovery and validation, with a network of senior designers and engineers when the project needs more hands.