20th-century Norwegian businesspeople

Otto Sverdrup Engelschiøn (30 October 1902 – 8 May 1982) was a Norwegian marketer, businessperson, resistance member and genealogist.
He was born in Kristiania as a son of consul-general Søren Dass Brodtkorb Sverdrup Engelschiøn (1867–1909) and Janka Hansen (1869–1935). In 1928 he married Gudrun Irgens Garmann.Engelschiøn finished his secondary education in 1922 and graduated from the Royal Frederick University with the cand.jur. degree in 1926. He was an attorney from 1927, and also director of I. Sverdrup Engelschiøn which had the rights to distribute Swedish Tomten products in Norway. In 1929 it was merged with Norsk Barnengens Tekniske Fabrik. Engelschiøn spent the rest of his career in the company, from 1929 as director of the sales and marketing department and from 1948 to 1968 as co-owner.In the 1930s he was a member of Nasjonal Samling. He left the party in the 1937 party split, continuing though in the Ragnarok group around national socialist Hans S. Jacobsen, and edited the magazine Ragnarok in 1940. In 1940, however, Norway was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Engelschiøn joined the resistance movement and was the head of intelligence in Milorg's District 13, Division 3 (Asker and Bærum) from 1943 to 1945. He received the Defence Medal 1940–1945 with rosette.Engelschiøn chaired the Norwegian Genealogical Society from 1957 to 1968, and thereafter served as deputy chairman. He was also a bibliophile, chairing Bibliofilklubben twice as well as the contest jury for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year. Engelschiøn also issued a crime novel under a pseudonym.He resided in Bærum. He died in 1982 and was buried at Haslum.

Ralph Mollatt (28 March 1926 – 5 August 1983) was a Norwegian businessperson.
He was born in Oslo, and studied in Syracuse, New York and Grenoble. He worked in the family company M. Peterson & Søn, and was CEO from 1963 to 1980. His younger brother Erik was later CEO from 1983 to 2002.For his work, Ralph Mollatt was decorated with the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav.

Willy Christian Simonsen (13 September 1913 – 4 December 2003) was a Norwegian engineer and business founder.
He was born in Kristiania as a son of chemist Einar Simonsen (1867–1918) and Alice Sophia Andersen (1877–1969). He finished his secondary education at Hegdehaugen School in 1933, and graduated in electrical engineering from the Dresden University of Technology in 1938. He worked as an engineer for Elektrisk Bureau and Chr. Michelsen Institute. During the German occupation of Norway from 1940 he was involved in the Norwegian resistance movement where he cooperated with fellow engineers Odd Dahl and Helmer H. Dahl to wiretap German forces. This was discovered and Simonsen was arrested by Gestapo, but admitted to Ullevål Hospital from which he escaped. He fled to the United Kingdom, where he started working in the Radio Production Unit of the British War Office. He developed the shortwave radio "Sweetheart".He was hired as a technical consultant for the Norwegian High Command after the war. In 1947 he started the company Simonsen Radio in Oslo, and in 1957 the company Simonsen & Mustad followed in Horten. He received initial capital from Halfdan and John Mustad. The brand name Simrad became known in the communications business, and was leading in echo sounding equipment. He backed out of these companies in 1968 and started Simonsen Elektro (in Oslo) in 1970 and Simonsen Elektro Løkken (in Løkken Verk). These companies produced automatic cell phones, in the NMT 450 system, and were leading in the Norwegian market until the 1980s.Simonsen was decorated with the Defence Medal 1940–1945, the UK Defence Medal, the Haakon VII 70th Anniversary Medal and the Order of St. Olav, and has received the Reginald Fessenden Award. He died in December 2003.

Tor Tank-Nielsen (9 July 1918 – 8 March 2010) was a Norwegian businessperson.He was born in Kristiania. He studied chemical engineering and graduated in 1940. In 1941 he was hired in the company M. Peterson & Søn, and after a series of promotions he became CEO in 1981.He is one of two honorary members in the Industrial Association of the city of Moss, the other one being Erik Mollatt.

Oluf Bernhard Reed-Olsen (8 July 1918 – 14 October 2002) was a Norwegian resistance member and pilot during World War II. As a resistance member he is best known for the Lysaker Bridge sabotage as well as operating illegal radio transmitters. After the war he was a businessman and Scouting leader. He wrote books and contributed to a film based on his war experience.

Thore Albert Boye (27 October 1912 – 1 October 1999) was a Norwegian diplomat.
He was born in Kristiania as a son of Supreme Court Justice Thorvald Boye (1871–1943) and Mia Esmarch (1880–1966). In 1945 he married Nøste Siem (1918–1999), a daughter of Ole Siem and sister of Martin Siem.He took the cand.jur. degree in 1936, and was an attorney and deputy judge in Tromsø before being hired in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1938. After the Second World War reached Norway on 9 April 1940, and the government fled the capital, Boye set out on skis to catch up with them. After doing so he acted as a courier to Stockholm, returned to Molde where he followed the flight of the Norwegian National Treasury to Tromsø. From Tromsø, he left the country together with the government and royal family. They reached London, where Boye became a secretary in the Ministry of Finance-in-exile; from 1941 the Ministry of Defence-in-exile. He was promoted to assistant secretary in 1942. From 1944 he participated in the rebuilding after the liberation of Northern Norway, and in the spring of 1945 he was a secretary for the provisional government in Oslo, awaiting the return of the real government from exile after the war.He was a legation concellor in Belgium from 1946 to 1948, assistant secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1948 to 1949, secretary-general for the Northern European group in NATO from 1949 to 1951. He was promoted to sub-director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1951 and deputy under-secretary of state in 1953. From 1955 to 1961 he worked as vice chief executive in the SAS Group, and he served as the Norwegian ambassador to Italy from 1961 to 1965. From 1962 he doubled as the ambassador to Greece. He was then the permanent under-secretary of state (the highest-ranking civil position) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1965 to 1971, then the Norwegian ambassador to Spain from 1972 to 1977 and Sweden from 1977 to 1981.He was decorated as a Commander with Star of the Order of St. Olav in 1969.

Jens Henrik Nordlie (18 January 1910 – 2 April 1996) was a Norwegian military officer, resistance fighter from World War II and businessperson. He participated in the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and was a member of Milorg's leadership in 1941. He worked for the Norwegian High Command in London from 1943, leading one of the two sections of department 4 (FO IV). He contributed to the post-war investigation committee, Undersøkelseskommisjonen av 1945, where he wrote the appendix on the fighting in Norway in spring 1940. He was operative leader of the clandestine Stay behind in Norway. He was CEO of the company Narvesen from 1957 to 1975, and a co-founder of the organization Fritt Ord.