Henrik Sollie
Co-founder | Chief Doer
Oslo, Norway
We are oversold on safety and gear that imitates the comfort of home. The best gear lightens your pack and protects you without standing between you and the raw feeling of nature.
Responsibility and authority
Henrik brings together the knowledge, field insight and ideas within the UR team and turns them into practical product direction. As CEO and Chief Doer, he bridges experience, design, partners and users, ensuring that UR’s products respond directly to the real challenges faced by those who rescue, protect and explore.
Background
Henrik has spent more than two decades building and leading companies where ideas must be turned into action quickly. His background combines entrepreneurship, commercial responsibility and hands-on involvement in product and system development.
Across ventures, he has worked where vision, people and delivery meet, helping complex initiatives move from concept to real-world impact. This experience shapes his role in UR, where he enables teams, aligns stakeholders and turns insight into practical solutions that can be built, tested and brought into the field.
Motivation
Henrik has a deep passion for nature and finds meaning in the freedom it offers. His motivation is rooted in ensuring that future generations, including his own children, can experience that same freedom safely. He is also inspired by indigenous ways of engaging with nature, and by how this understanding shaped tools designed for function and durability.
Professionally, he is driven by the challenge of turning insight into action. He focuses on building resilient and scalable companies that create real value through user-centered innovation and product development.
What inspires him most are the moments when a materialized idea meets the problem it was designed to solve, in the hands of the people who initially identified the need. When solutions prove their value in real use, and especially when they contribute to saving lives, the work gains its full meaning.
Three field-derived insights
Trondheim → Oslo on rollerskis (581 km, 28h 11m)
Henrik completed the 581 km route three times, twice solo. On one occasion, continuous rain during the final 15 hours led to complete saturation of all clothing layers. The prolonged cold-water exposure demonstrated that performance and clarity erode gradually as protection fails. That experience became the seed for UR’s outer-layer philosophy — waterproof protection that remains light, compact, and immediate.
Round Britain Race (2008, 2nd place)
In 2008, Henrik was part of a team that built a Goldfish 36 SuperSport to compete in the Round Britain Race. During sustained high-speed operation with constant spray breaking over the deck, it became clear how even advanced waterproof layers degrade under relentless impact. The experience highlighted the difference between water-resistant materials and solutions designed for proper protection, informing UR’s approach to wearable shelter systems.
World’s longest continuous ski (550 km, 32h solo)
On his 45th birthday, Henrik undertook a continuous 550 km ski effort without assistance. As fatigue accumulated, control shifted from conscious planning to instinctive movement. Awareness narrowed and actions became more intuitive. This experience clarified how safety under strain depends on simplicity and instinctive function, an insight that later became foundational to UR.