Carl I. Hagen - Early Life

Early Life

Hagen was born to CEO Ragnar Hagen (1908–1969) and accountant Gerd Gamborg (born 1914). He was named after his paternal grandfather, Carl, and his maternal grandfather, Ivar. He has two siblings, one younger, and one older sister. Hagen was before the Progress Party a passive member of the Young Conservatives, and according to him, both his parents voted for the Labour Party. According to Hagen himself and his secondary school classmates, Hagen was a relatively shy boy in his younger years. When he was seventeen years old, in 1961, he went as an apprentice at the Norwegian America Line ship MS Foldenfjord. In 1964, he was conscripted in the Norwegian Army, and served as an engineer soldier at Eggemoen near Hønefoss, and Maukstadmoen in Troms.

After this, he left Norway for England. Originally wanting to become an engineer, he flunked mathematics in Sunderland and chose to study marketing and business studies in Newcastle instead, earning a Higher National Diploma in Business Studies in 1968. From being more reserved in his youngest days, he soon became a player in Northern English student politics. In 1967 he fought over the office of vice president of the National Union of Students against Jack Straw (later Labour Party MP and Secretary of State for Justice of the UK).

He achieved Examen artium in 1963, and Higher National Diploma in Business Studies in 1968. Prior to dedicating his professional life to politics, Hagen was CEO at Tate & Lyle Norway from 1970 to 1974, Consultant of Finansanalyse from 1977 to 1979, and economic policy consultant in the oil industry from 1979 to 1981.