Trude Lerfald

Trude Lerfald, a trained Social Anthropologist who studied at the University of Oslo, has a diverse background leading to her current work at the NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration). In her professional career, she has worked in everything from teaching, qualitative market research, innovation management and leadership training to branding, athlete management and business development. She has held titles as a research consultant, innovation anthropologist, idea astronaut, brand architect and CEO of a global brand. Now she has finally found a home in the professional world, leaving the corporate world in favor of public administration, in NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration). Inspired by the magic of anthropology and motivated by the versatile anthropological approach, she is hired as a Design Researcher and Anthropologist, to make sure that governmental welfare services are innovative and up to date and – most of all – always oriented around people’s actual needs.

“Why the world needs anthropologists? I believe it is because we – together with other disciplines – add the extra sparkle in the digitization of the public sector and their services. We make matters matter. And identify what matters that really matter. We fill in the blanks with the how and why of things. If there is one key word to our contributions, it must be sense-making.”