Our new office in Vancouver has officially opened, so we wanted to introduce you to Christian Nielsen. Christian is our Director of Strategy in Vancouver and has been with Monstarlab since 2016. We chat a bit about his time at the company, his hopes for the new Vancouver office, and a bit about emerging technology trends to keep close tabs on.
You can reach Christian to set up a meeting by clicking here.
First, can you talk a bit about your time so far at Monstarlab? You’ve been a part of the company for over five years now, correct?
Yes, it’s amazing how time flies. I joined the European part of Monstarlab (formerly known as Nodes) late 2016 to transition and grow our London office. Change is always a tough challenge, but I find it really interesting and because of a great team effort, hard work and luck, we managed to strengthen our delivery structure and grow over 400% from 2017 to 2020, while also establishing a new office in Dubai. Needless to say, I learned a lot during those years, especially from incubating a fintech as interim CEO on behalf of a prominent client.
And now that you are here in Vancouver, what are you looking forward to?
Being Scandinavian, I look forward to being close to the sea again and to exploring all the epic adventures we have on our doorstep here. From a work perspective, it’s a great entrepreneurial opportunity to get to set up and establish a new office on the west coast of North America. We’ve been active in the Americas for over 20 years so there’s great expertise to build on and engage further with some of the world’s best tech clients and talent here excites me greatly.
Seeing your move from Vancouver’s perspective, how are you hoping our presence will enrich the city?
Based on the fact that Vancouver has successfully transitioned from a predominantly resource-based economy to a diverse knowledge-based one where products and services are traded more seamlessly across borders, I believe many clients here will benefit from our global presence and expertise across a variety of industries. As digital keeps transforming society and markets, many companies will need partners like us to help them in their efforts to change, because of our proven ability to combine tangible elements, like engineering and design, with intangible elements, like values and strategy, in a human-centered change process.
Are there any types of projects that excite you the most? Is there anything coming up in the near future that you can speak to about?
Yes definitely. As a business technologist who’s been groomed by years in the digital trenches with great people, I’m particularly excited about helping clients transform their organizations by combining change management and digital solutions. Over the years I’ve discovered that, when carefully managed, digital solutions can facilitate, even accelerate, change within organizations.
Yes, we’re currently helping the C-suite in a leading European mobility company expand in North America and as part of that work, we’re helping them strategically benefit from the transformational changes happening in their industry while orchestrating vital elements of their digital transformation. It’s challenging just how I like it.
And zooming back out a bit from just Vancouver, what new tech trends are you predicting that we’ll start to see being implemented over the next year? Are there any new digital technologies in particular that you’re keeping up with?
Ah, technology prediction. That’s always fun. With ‘Internet-of-Things’ (IoT) coming out the hype curve, I’m advising our clients regardless of their risk appetite to take action, because while the adoption of 5G in North America is slower than Asia and Europe, we’re already seeing the real-world transformational effects of IoT in mobility, real estate, fitness and hospitality. I’m only advising clients with a high risk appetite to invest in AI and the Metaverse, because they’re overhyped right now, which means that the expectations are a lot higher than the current real-world benefits.
