FinOps Community Norway: From Visibility to Action
(We want everyone to be able to participate. If you cannot join us in person, don’t worry! This will be a hybrid event and a Teams link will be shared with all registered participants before the session.)
Join us for the very first FinOps Community Meetup in Norway — hosted at Microsoft’s office in Bjørvika, Oslo!
This marks the beginning of a local FinOps community where practitioners, architects, and finance leaders can meet to share experiences, challenges, and best practices around cloud cost management and accountability.
Whether you’re just starting your FinOps journey or already driving optimization across teams, this meetup is an opportunity to connect with peers, exchange ideas, and learn from hands-on practitioners.
📍 Location: Microsoft Office, Bjørvika
🗓️ Date & Time: 25th of November, 09:00 – 12:00 (Registration from 08:45)
Agenda highlights:
Welcome Remarks from FinOps Foundation – by Ruben Vander Stockt, Director of Communication
Ruben will share brief insights from the FinOps Foundation, including global FinOps trends, community focus areas, and how the Foundation supports organisations and practitioners on their FinOps journey.
FinOps for AI – by Bjørn Sigurd Hove, Lead Cloud Advisor at Vivicta
AI introduces new types of cloud consumption, unpredictable scaling patterns, and token-based pricing models that challenge traditional cost management practices.
In this session, Bjørn will explore how FinOps principles apply to AI-driven workloads, and show us how to understand and manage the unique cost dynamics of AI workloads, from token-based pricing to resource unpredictability, with insights from Gjensidige Forsikring.
Carlsberg’s FinOps Journey – by Sonal Gupta, Senior Manager of FinOps & Cloud Hosting Service Delivery at Carlsberg Group
Carlsberg’s FinOps transformation focuses on driving financial accountability, transparency, and operational efficiency across a global organization. Sonal will walk through how FinOps practices were embedded into Carlsberg’s cloud governance model, enabling better collaboration between engineering, finance, and business teams.
This session will highlight key initiatives, tangible outcomes, and lessons learned along the way - showing how FinOps evolved from a cost management effort into a long-term value-driving capability.
FinOps in Practice: From Visibility to Action – by Noorulzahraa Qasim Abbas, Platform Lead and Solution Architect at SGDN (Saint-Gobain Distribution Norway)
Cloud cost visibility is only the first step - the real value comes when teams can take action and continuously improve.
In this session, Noora will share how SGDN operationalised FinOps across its cloud environment, focusing on transparency, shared accountability, and collaboration between engineering, finance, and product teams.
This talk will highlight practical frameworks, lessons learned, and examples of how FinOps supports better decision-making, platform maturity, and sustainable long-term cloud growth. FinOps is one of the core responsibilities within Noora’s broader platform leadership role, and this session will reflect how it integrates into modern cloud operating models.
Corentin Berthelot - one of the Platform Engineers will also do a short demo of some of the optimizations that were done for SGDN.
Panel & Community Discussion – “Our biggest FinOps challenges right now”
An open discussion with speakers, Microsoft, and the audience. To encourage participation, we’ll have FinOps Challenge slips available where attendees can submit questions or challenges before the panel starts.
☕ Networking and coffee included — stay after the wrap-up to connect, discuss, and help shape the future of the FinOps Community Norway.
(No lunch was sponsored this time, if anyone knows a company that can sponsor the lunch feel free to reach out to Noora | LinkedIn).
About the Speakers
🧠 Bjørn Sigurd Hove – Lead Cloud Advisor, Vivicta
Bjørn Sigurd Hove is Lead Cloud Advisor at Vivicta, with extensive experience in cloud governance, cost optimisation, and architecture.
He has played a key role in the FinOps core team at Gjensidige Forsikring, combining technical expertise with strategic financial insight.
As a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert and Azure AI Engineer Associate, Bjørn bridges the gap between AI innovation and FinOps principles — helping organisations understand and control AI-related cloud costs.
🌍 Sonal Gupta – Senior Manager of FinOps & Cloud Hosting Service Delivery, Carlsberg Group
Sonal Gupta is Senior Manager of FinOps & Cloud Hosting Service Delivery at Carlsberg Group.
Since joining Carlsberg in 2019, she has led the company’s FinOps initiative across Western Europe and globally, focusing on embedding cost awareness early in the engineering lifecycle, driving accountability, and building a scalable FinOps culture across teams and business units.
She brings deep experience from Carlsberg’s global FinOps journey — combining visibility, governance, and collaboration to deliver measurable financial impact and long-term cultural change.
⚙️ Noorulzahraa Qasim Abbas – Platform Lead and Solution Architect, SGDN (Saint-Gobain Distribution Norway)
Noora is a Platform Lead and Solution Architect with extensive experience in cloud cost optimisation, governance, and architecture.
She leads the Platform Team at SGDN, responsible for building and operating Azure-based services across multiple product domains.
While FinOps is a key area of focus, it is one of several responsibilities she holds — alongside driving platform reliability, security, and scalability.
Her work bridges the gap between technology, finance, and operations, enabling teams to build cost-aware solutions, establish shared responsibility, and turn visibility into action through FinOps practices in Azure.
🛠️ Corentin Berthelot – Platform Engineer, Claranet (currently working with SGDN) Corentin is a Platform Engineer at Claranet, currently collaborating with Saint-Gobain Distribution Norway (SGDN) to drive cloud platform initiatives. With hands-on experience in Terraform, Azure DevOps, GitLab, and PowerShell automation, he is dedicated to building robust, scalable, and cost-efficient solutions on Azure.
Alongside platform engineering, Corentin actively contributes to SRE practices - maintaining production reliability and ensuring seamless operations. His approach is rooted in problem-solving: transforming challenges and ideas into practical solutions, whether in FinOps or broader platform improvements.
Corentin bridges technical execution with operational excellence, working closely with teams to automate workflows, optimise costs, and turn strategic vision into day-to-day reality.