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1. Hi! What's your name and current role?

Luisa Skjærholt, Teamleader and Project Manager at Giant Leap Technologies.

2. Describe your team and the product you are developing in a few words.

Giant Leap has many different products. I’m in what you can call the “Parking department” where we develop 6 different parking solutions that together form a Parking 360 solution. This solution touches on all the different parts of the parking customer journey, from solutions for the operators that manage the different parking facilities to the end-users who are their customers.

My team is a combination of the development team and the product team and we are in charge of the product called Permit. Permit is where our customers can administer their parking products and offer the end-users web solutions for purchasing them.

3. Last year you had mobility experience in Visma and moved to Portugal. Can you please tell us a few words about your decision to move to Porto?

I am originally from Porto but I’ve spent the last 8 years in Oslo with my Portuguese-Norwegian family.

After we had our second child we started playing with the idea to move to Porto temporarily to be closer to my family and friends and give our kids the opportunity to experience Portugal and become closer to what is also their culture.

We were very lucky when we saw that Visma had just opened a Tech Center in Portugal, and to my surprise, Porto! So we saw this as an amazing opportunity to make this experience a reality.

I talked with Giant Leap about this plan and they were very quick to suggest that I could simply be transferred to Portugal while I’m here, being able to carry on my position in the company. It has worked amazingly so far!

4. How did your international mobility experience impact your personal and professional growth?

It’s amazing to be able to be back home and to have the opportunity to carry on with my job in GLT at the same time. It also gives me a sense of security since I know that when the time comes to move back, I can transfer back to my original place.

I’m obviously still working with the same team. Additionally, it was decided that we could take this opportunity to expand our Permit team and find new people here in Portugal.

I’ve only been the team leader for local teams, and now I have to lead a team in different locations. This is making me have to rethink and evaluate how I work with everyone and have to come up with clever solutions to bring everyone together as one team regardless of the distance. At the same time, I have to make sure that my communication and work with the rest of the organization doesn’t have a negative impact with me sitting 3000 km away.

I’m very happy with how this has worked so far! Not only do I maintain my team in Oslo, but I also have a whole new team here with everyone at Visma Tech Portugal! Best of both worlds!

I also get to see the weather warnings for Oslo and still enjoy the sun in Porto, and there’s nothing wrong with that either!

5. What benefits or perks offered by Visma do you find most valuable or unique?

The fact that it was so easy to make this move and the flexibility it gives me as a mother of two kids under 3 years old. Those are my top 2.

I’m also very thankful to the team here at Visma Tech Portugal which made me feel very welcomed, and even though I don’t work with them directly, it makes us feel like we are a true team.

I also became a member of the Happiness committee here at Visma Tech Portugal, and that has given me opportunities to do stuff outside my area of work, and it is truly just super fun!

6. How about your own story? How did you become a Project Manager?

My background is in Biomedical engineering but soon after I was done with my degree I realised that wasn’t the path for me. I then decided to study Service Engineering and Management which opened my eyes to this world and it all kind of just happened very naturally.

The startup scene is very big in Oslo, so that’s where I started. After that, I worked in the public sector in the Oslo Municipality and later started at Giant Leap Technologies.

The IT sector is an ever-changing world and to be able to have a direct impact on how our solutions are used, improving and making the users' day-to-day lives a bit simpler through technology is really exciting.

7. What do you like to do most outside of work?

Outside of work, I like hanging out with my little family, finding new parks and playgrounds with the kids, catching up with my friends and just doing normal day-to-day things with them that I didn’t have the chance to do while I was living abroad.

Other than that, I love to travel, eat, knit and do a lot of arts and crafts such as painting, sewing and building small furniture.