Erik Harry Høydal
From the first idea to the thing people use.
Strategy · Product · AI enablement
Nine years in global medtech. Co-inventor on an AI patent. Independent since January 2026.
Now
Independent, through EHBH Consulting
Since January 2026 I work for my own clients. Most of it is long-horizon: where a category is heading, what to put resources behind now, what to stop, and what a decision taken this year looks like three years out.
Analysis and strategic judgement, turned into a direction a team can act on. I have spent enough time close to engineering to know what is realistic to promise, which is usually where these decisions go wrong.
Engagements run as a standing arrangement over months, or as a scoped piece with a deliverable and a date. Norwegian and English, from Oslo, working across Europe.
Commercial and AI-enablement advisory
Global hearing technology group, across two of its brands
Product, process and business model work
Norwegian healthcare chain
Competitor and financial analysis
Nordic arm of a global industrial group
Selected work
Two that show the pattern
An AI assistant for sound
Initiated and co-invented a patented deep neural network assistant for personalised hearing. Now standard across the premium range.
A platform launch across 130 markets
End-to-end ownership of the company's largest product launch, from user research on three continents to rollout in 130 countries.
How I work
Three things, in order
See the whole picture
Start with a clear image of the best possible outcome. That picture turns guessing into navigation.
Find the path of least resistance
Change sticks when it is easier than the current state. Find the point where doing it the new way becomes the natural thing to do.
Make it real
Strategy is worth something once it reaches the people it was meant for. That means getting it specific enough to act on, and staying close while it lands.
Things I've built
Four I built and keep running
These are mine, not client work, and I am not selling them here. An idea gets honest the moment you have to make it run, so I make them run. Anything at real scale takes a team, but building the small version myself is the fastest way I know to stay current on what these tools can actually do, rather than what they are said to do.
About
The short version
For nine years I worked in global medtech, first at Siemens and then in the group its hearing business became part of. Twelve thousand people, products in more than 130 markets, based at the headquarters in Erlangen and later in Denmark.
I initiated and co-invented a deep neural network system for sound personalisation that is now a standard feature across the premium range, one of three named inventors on the patent. I owned product launches end to end, and gave talks in Prague, Cancún, Tokyo, Munich and Oslo.
Before that I was an audiologist, and before that I sang in a band and put out a couple of records. That never really left the work. Years of listening closely to sound turn out to be useful when the job becomes deciding how sound should behave, and somewhere in there it also produced a peer-reviewed paper on hearing loss in rock musicians.
Now I work independently through EHBH Consulting, mostly on long-horizon questions: where something is going, and what to do about it now.
Education
- 2026Digital transformation, master level, NTNU
- 2025Innovation management, Erasmus University Rotterdam
- 2021Digital disruption, Cambridge Judge Business School
- 2021Mini MBA, brand management, Marketing Week
- 2015MSc, Clinical Health Science, NTNU
Oslo, Norway.
Let's talk.
Best way in is an email with what you are trying to work out. I answer properly or I say it is not for me.
consult@erikharry.no