Kjell Madland

Gründer og styreleder, Norway Chess
Gründer og styremedlem Norway Summit

Kjell er gründeren av Norway Chess og har jobbet med det fra idé stadiet til hva det er i dag: verdens sterkeste 10-manns turnering anerkjent over hele verden. Kjell er unikt kreativ og har evnen til alltid å kunne tenke utenfor boksen.  

Han har en lang erfaring fra næringslivet. Kjell startet sitt eget byggefirma som 22 åring og har siden det hatt lederstillinger i flere selskaper, blant annet som distriktssjef i GK inneklima, daglig leder i Jadarhus Gjesdal, regionsjef for Norema og som daglig leder i Bryne FK i hele 10 år, derav 4 år i Tippeligaen.  Kjell er like involvert i Norway Chess og alt som følger med som han har vært fra han fikk idéen. I tillegg er han også gründer og styremedlem i Norway Summit. 

Benedicte Westre Skog

Prosjektleder, Norway Chess
Daglig leder, Norway Summit 

Benedicte er prosjektleder i Norway Chess. Hun har vært med siden 2015 og har bidratt til en stor del av utviklingen av Norway Chess merkevaren. Benedicte har også hatt  stor innflytelse på å utvikle konseptet Norway Summit helt fra idé stadiet. Hun har i tillegg til oppgavene som daglig leder i Norway Summit, ansvar for programmet, bidragsytere, markedsføring og gjennomføring.

Benedicte har en MSc grad i International Development fra Nederland og har studert i en rekke andre land, blant annet, Canada (BA Honors), India og Mexico.

Benedicte driver også sin egen NGO, Argan Care, som planter trær i den utrydningstruede Argan skogen i Marokko og som bidrar til arbeidsplasser og inntekter til lokalbefolkningen, spesielt kvinner.

Shohreh Bayat

Hoved-dommer

Shohreh Bayat is a Category-A International Arbiter, FIDE Lecturer, Woman FIDE Master and councillor of the FIDE Arbiters Commission.

She was Chief Arbiter of the Women’s World Championship Final and The list of FIDE events at which she has officiated includes World Olympiads 2014, 2016 & 2018, Women’s World Championship 2017 & 2018, 2020 FIDE Women’s Candidate 2020, FIDE World Cadet Rapid & Blitz Championship 2018, World Junior Championships 2017 , World Senior Team Championships 2017, World Youth Championships  2015, as well as online events like Online Chess Olympiad 2020, Online World University Games 2020 and Online World Youth Chess Championship 2020.

As a player, she has been a participant of the Iranian national team which won the 3rd Women’s World Islamic Games (2001), also achieved 5th rank in the Asian Girls U18 Championship (2004). She has won numerous Iranian tournaments such as the Iranian woman chess festival championship, the Iranian woman blitz championship, the Iranian Junior championship and the Iranian Universities chess championship.

Shohreh has a Master’s degree in Natural Resources engineering and she has published three articles in international journals.

Anastasia Sorokina

Dommer

Anastasia Sorokina is Woman International Master (2001), International Arbiter (2002), FIDE Trainer (2005), International Organizer (2018). She was born on 26 January 1980 in Minsk, Belarus.
In 2003 Anastasia moved to Australia and worked as a chess coach in the Queensland School of Chess, and then in Chess Kids in Melbourne. She now lives in Riga.

Karl-Johan Rist

Lennart Ootes

Sjakkbrett mester og fotograf

Lennart Ootes is a creative chess professional from the Netherlands. He works for numerous tournaments as a DGT operator, video broadcaster, photographer or web designer. Since 2017 he is involved with Norway Chess as a DGT board operator and photographer. Lennart was awarded as best photographer of 2018 in the photo contest of the Russian Chess Federation.

Maria Fragkaki

Social Media

Maria is an experienced Digital Marketing Specialist, trusted by companies in Greece, London, India, Brussels, Berlin, Norway, and The Netherlands. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Crete, and a BA (Hons) Marketing Management Degree from the Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, with a research paper on how social media affects women’s body image.

She started as a social media assistant and copywriter for small businesses in 2014; continued as a social media manager at a Creative Digital Marketing Agency in Chania – her hometown – in 2017, to finally move to Athens in 2019 to chase her freelancer’s dream.

In 2020 she founded Lemonpie, a freelance Social Media Branding Agency, offering 360 Digital Marketing Services in collaboration with 15+ freelancers from all over the world, commission-free! Lastly, since 2020 she has been working in the chess industry, a niche market which made her fall in love even more with her sport (she is a 5-time Greek Chess Champion), but also with how social media can really inspire marketers to create more «personal» and quality content than commercial.

Mehmet Ismail

Game Theory Expert

Mehmet Ismail, currently a lecturer in economics at King’s College London’s Department of Political Economy, has a diverse academic background. He holds a PhD in Economics from Maastricht University and during this period, he had the opportunity to work with esteemed game theorist and political scientist, Steven Brams, at New York University. Mehmet also holds a masters in applied mathematics from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and spent a semester at Bielefeld University as part of the Erasmus Mundus QEM programme.

Beyond academia, Mehmet is an ardent chess enthusiast and a former professional backgammon player. His passion for games goes much further than just playing; he is intrigued by the multifaceted world of games, exploring everything from theoretical foundations and practical applications to game design, fairness and gameplay itself.