About

Ken-Tore Saade Eriksen is a defence training and simulation leader with more than 38 years of service in the Norwegian Army, including over two decades dedicated to training systems, simulation capability and institutional governance of military readiness.

He now leads Eriksen LiveSim Consult, an independent advisory practice working with defence organisations and international suppliers across the Nordic and Baltic region. Working independently means advising across the sector rather than for a single portfolio — on market entry and positioning, synthetic training governance and architecture, requirements definition and procurement alignment.

In 2026 he worked industry-side as Business Development Director, Nordics & Baltics at BAE Systems OneArc, covering seven markets across the Nordic and Baltic region. That period added a commercial perspective to a career built on the customer side of the same table.

Before moving into industry, he served as Head of the Norwegian Army Training & Simulation Centre from 2018 to 2026 — the Army’s senior national position for simulation policy, training governance and Live-Virtual-Constructive capability integration. In that role he held institutional responsibility for the Army’s simulation portfolio, linking procurement, doctrine, operational training and readiness measurement into a coherent governance framework.

Defence organisations across the Nordic and Baltic region are investing heavily in simulation. The gap between what is invested and what is actually gained from it is rarely a technology problem. It is a problem of ownership, governance and adoption. Eriksen LiveSim Consult exists to close that gap.

• Nordic & Baltic market entry — positioning, stakeholder navigation and route to market for international suppliers
• Governance & architecture — synthetic training governance, capability architecture and LVC integration strategy
• Requirements & procurement — requirements definition, procurement alignment and capture strategy support
• Executive advisory — retained advisory, advisory board participation and independent second opinion

Throughout his career he has held responsibility for:

• National simulation portfolio integration across Army structures
• Governance design for Live, Virtual and Constructive training environments
• Brigade and Division-level constructive training structures
• Alignment of simulation capability with doctrinal evolution
• Institutional transformation of training ownership models
• NATO engagement and multinational training coordination

Rather than managing isolated systems, his leadership has focused on structuring training as an institutional capability tied directly to operational output and readiness.

Alongside national leadership responsibilities, Ken-Tore has contributed to international dialogue on defence training and synthetic environments.

• Accepted author and presenter, I/ITSEC 2026 — Closing the Nordic Synthetic Training Gap: From Exercises to Persistent LVC Environments, selected for the I/ITSEC 2026 Conference Proceedings and podium presentation, Orlando
• Author of the Chief of the Norwegian Army’s keynote address at ITEC 2025
• Panel speaker at ITEC 2025 in Oslo
• Invited panel participant at ITEC 2026 in London on Training Transformation
• Business development across seven Nordic and Baltic markets in the defence training industry
• Active engagement with NATO and multinational training and simulation communities

These engagements reflect a professional profile shaped not only by national leadership but by active participation in the international conversation on how military training must evolve to remain operationally relevant.

Operational deployments to Lebanon, Bosnia and Syria provided first-hand experience of decision-making under uncertainty and multi-domain operational complexity. That experience shaped a principle applied consistently since:

For more than two decades Ken-Tore worked within the Norwegian Army at the intersection of training, simulation and operational capability development, and subsequently from the industry side of the same market. That combination produces a perspective that is difficult to acquire from either side of the institutional boundary alone. He has seen where synthetic training ecosystems deliver genuine operational value, and where they fall short — not because the technology fails, but because the requirements, governance and integration decisions that surround it are inadequate.

The recurring pattern is not a technology problem. It is a requirements problem: connectivity, interoperability and the ability to operate across a coherent training architecture need to be designed in from the outset, not negotiated at additional cost after delivery. That argument runs through the analysis published on this site and reflects a view formed over decades of working with these systems from the inside.

Ken-Tore publishes analysis and professional commentary on defence training, synthetic environments and capability governance at eriksenlsc.com — sharing perspectives on synthetic training integration, defence capability governance and the evolution of large-formation training in NATO and the Nordic region. All views expressed here are his own.