$1.3 tn fund hires self-taught persons without a formal education Norway fund in desperate search of cyber experts

Norway's sovereign wealth fund is widening its recruitment net to include people without college degrees as it searches for the brightest minds to protect its $1.3 trillion portfolio from growing armies of hackers.

Nicolai Tangen, the Oslobased fund's CEO, says he occasionally picks up the phone himself to "encourage good candidates to apply," as part of the recruitment process. The kinds of attacks the fund encounters are "more and more sophisticated. The powers we're up against are huge," he said. "There's a lot of money in this fund, so it's a precious target."

Hackers attempted to breach the fund’s systems more than 1,000 times in 2020, representing a doubling from the previous year, Tangen said in an interview.

The 54-year-old CEO says he's also interested in talking to ethical hackers.

The focus on cyber security has prompted the fund to rethink some of its traditional recruitment requirements. "In general, we're more open than we used to be," said Ada Magnaes, head of HR. Now applicants won't be expected to have the kinds of university or college degrees normally needed to get past process.

She says Norges Bank Investment Management -the fund's official name -has already hired people in Singapore and New York who were "without a formal education, practically self-taught."

"They've got exactly the mindset and the attitude we're looking for," she said.

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