Our Team
Helge Gallefoss / CEO - Founder
Helge is a seasoned entrepreneur and pioneer in digital infrastructure, who launched Norway’s first internet consulting company, Media Lab, in 1993 (now part of Bouvet). Since then, he has founded several ventures across data centers, digital infrastructure, digital health, and media, with achievements in cloud services, cloud infrastructure, subsea fiber systems (like Skagenfiber), and property development.
In 1995, Helge built the first data center at EDB-senteret in Mølleparken, Oslo, and has since overseen the planning and construction of numerous other facilities, including landing stations for Skagenfiber in Larvik and Hirtshals, smaller data center sites supporting critical connectivity.
During his work with Fjord IT, Helge invented a data center free-cooling system, securing international patents for this technology. Today, he is advancing innovative concepts for reusing heat from data centers. Helge was also a member of The Green Grid, contributing to the development of environmental standards within the data center industry.
Currently, his primary focus is concept and business development in response to the extraordinary growth in the data center sector. He specializes in developing sites across the Nordics powered by renewable energy and integrated heat reuse systems. Helge is dedicated to sustainable development, integrating ESG principles with a particular emphasis on climate and marine ecosystems in all his projects.
With a career spanning from the early days of the internet to the present, Helge combines visionary thinking with hands-on expertise and strong communication skills. His extensive professional network in the data center and fiber connectivity sectors includes industry clients and hyperscalers, reflecting his impactful presence in the field.
Rune Skow / CTO - Founder
A seasoned civil engineer with over 30 years in digital infrastructure, Rune has held key management roles across R&D, business development, and major national telecom projects for Norway’s leading telecom operators. He has served in high-impact roles such as Program Manager, CTO, and Business Development Director, collaborating with operators, suppliers, and consulting firms (notably NEXIA, HiQ).
Rune has successfully planned and deployed large scale digital infrastructure builds. As as a board member and CTO of BlueCom. As founder and CEO/CTO of Skagenfiber, he successfully led the establishment of a subsea fiber cable network linking Oslo, Larvik, and Hirtshals.
His key achievements also include spearheading broadband and rural fiber projects in Norway, such as district broadband in Nord-Trøndelag for NTE, managing Telia-NetCom’s nationwide 4G and IP-Backhaul rollout (NeMo), and as Director for Sønnico Tele’s advancements in mobile and technical development. Additionally, as project manager, he oversaw the large-scale live data center migration for EVRY, among Europes largest operations of its kind at the time.
Øivind Oberg Magnussen / CFO - Founder
With over 24 years of executive experience as a CEO and CFO, Øivind has a proven track record in steering high-growth companies toward sustainable expansion, with a focus on internationalization, strategic financial planning, and building high-performance management teams.
Øivind’s background in investment banking includes extensive work across capital markets and public listings in both the Nordic region and the United States. He has been responsible for comprehensive financial oversight, including accounting, reporting, annual audits, and liquidity management for multiple companies under his leadership.
In addition, Øivind brings over 24 years of board experience and is board-certified, having served across various sectors both nationally and internationally.
Stein Inge Bruland / Chairman of the Board
Experienced Sales Leader with exceptional performance. A long term track record of attracting great talent and building strong sales organisations into globally top performing region.
Technology startup specialist in Switzerland and successful experience setting up in the DACH region from scratch.
A sales and business leader with experience building 3 start-up's from scratch and turning territories into hyper-growth regions and becoming ‘’light-house’’ countries.
David Gallefoss / Business Development - Founder
Specialized in Public Relations and communications management, David has a decade of experience from digital marketing, working with emerging platforms. He has worked internationally with multinational corporations and brands.
David has been at the leading edge of modern communications. He has fostered a data driven approach to developing and deploying strategies with emerging tech and is an exceptional analyst. He is a driven researcher and project manager and took on coordinating planning, documentation, permits and QC between entities involved in the Skagenfiber build.
Dorian Olariu / UK Sales
Dorian brings over 20 years of experience in business development, specializing in IT power infrastructure, critical power solutions, and energy storage (BESS) within the data center sector. With a master’s degree in electrical engineering and an MBA, Dorian’s career includes leadership roles in technical sales at EATON, Urban Electric, and CIS Global, serving both the data center and oil & gas industries.
Now part of the DataEnergy team, Dorian focuses on market development, research, and sales for custom installations. He is committed to fostering strong relationships with key clients, partners, and stakeholders to drive both business expansion and customer satisfaction. By closely analyzing market trends, competitor strategies, and evolving customer needs, Dorian strategically identifies new growth opportunities in the data center industry.
Advisory Board
Michael Pawlyn / Architect
“I’m delighted to have joined the DataEnergy advisory board and believe my main contributions will be innovative suggestions based on biomimetics and insights about the latest developments in the sustainability debate. Biomimetics is a rapidly developing discipline that strives to design as nature – to achieve equivalent levels of resource efficiency to what is found in living organisms and systems that have evolved with the benefit of 3.8 billion years of evolutionary development. There is now a growing consensus that sustainability based on trying to be ‘less bad’ is not enough – we need to find ways to be regenerative and deliver net positive impacts.”
Michael Pawlyn is an architect, writer and public speaker. He has been described as an expert in regenerative design and biomimicry. He established his firm Exploration Architecture in 2007 to focus on high performance buildings and solutions for the circular economy. Prior to setting up Exploration, Michael Pawlyn worked with Grimshaw for ten years and was central to the team that designed the Eden Project. He is regularly booked as a keynote speaker on innovation and his TED talk has had over 2 million views.
He has written two books - Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency (co-authored with Sarah Ichioka) and Biomimicry in Architecture which is the publisher’s best-selling title of the last fifteen years. In 2019 he jointly initiated ‘Architects Declare a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency’ – a global call to action which has spread to 28 countries with over 8,000 firms signed up. His work has been featured in The Financial Times, National Geographic, The Economist, Wired and The Guardian as well as in a large number of design magazines. In recent years he has been increasingly advising companies and national governments on how to make the shift from sustainable to regenerative ways of operating