Rita Hausken is a Strategic Thinking Partner to leaders solving complex problems - giving them a place to think beyond politics, beyond urgency, and into the long-term vision only they can see.

Founder of Shestainability and Co-Founder of Lean In Equity & Sustainability. She serves on advisory boards for organisations working across climate change, energy transition, and basic human needs.

Rita works with senior women inside complex environments - those carrying responsibility for outcomes that extend far beyond their own roles. C-suite leaders, founders, and board members holding strategic accountability for organisations in motion, navigating political tension, institutional inertia, growth and sales targets, and decisions that affect communities, infrastructure, and long-term impact. She works across public institutions, global corporations, scale-ups, and early-stage ventures, including leaders connected to the United Nations.

Many carry revenue pressure, delivery expectations, and the responsibility of making the numbers work while still holding the future in view.

Her ability to influence without formal authority has been tested far beyond business.

She drove cross-system action across healthcare, media, and government - navigating resistance and cost barriers to secure Aldurazyme access in Norway and reshape treatment pathways for children with Hurler Syndrome. Rita also secured life-saving treatment for a young boy with MPS1 in India when options were closing, navigating complex systems across cultures, with life and death on the line.

She persuaded leading medical teams in Norway and the UK to attempt pioneering procedures that saved her son Benjamin’s life. And she successfully challenged the Norwegian state in court, overturning UNE’s decision and setting a humanitarian precedent for exceptional care circumstances.

The question she leads with is "What is this problem designed to solve".

With more than three decades of experience across oil and gas and complex negotiation environments, Rita has been recognised among the Top 10 Global Entrepreneurs in Energy Transition and received the CEO Today Executive Coaching Award in 2022. She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation, SelectionF Board Certified with SelectionF (focused on board readiness and strategic governance), and holds advanced certifications from iPEC, including Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner (ELI-MP) and COR.E Dynamics Specialist.

She has worked with UN leaders, global energy and technology companies, and women building ventures designed to address urgent global challenges.

Her work leaves leaders clearer in their thinking, steadier under pressure, and more anchored in what matters - able to walk into any room and change the direction of the conversation.