Simon Irgens
I’m a Senior Customer Success Manager and industry expert working with Autodesk Forma. As a Customer Success Manager, I help users get value from the Forma planning and conceptual design software. Our customers typically design and develop large building projects, and my role is to help them realize the potential of their projects. Before joining Forma, I worked as an architect for 15 years in Copenhagen, where I’m from, and Oslo, where I live now. Since I know the architecture and construction industry well, I work closely with our skilled product developers to help ensure their solutions match our customers’ needs.
When possible, I enjoy working from our Oslo office and spending time with my team and colleagues. Forma is a diverse crowd, and it’s a luxury to meet and discuss our common ambition to drive positive change in the way we design our cities. Over the past few years, I’ve been working a lot from home. While working from home is cozy – with three kids and a puppy never far away! – I really appreciate the variation and the flexibility to work from wherever I need. It keeps me energized and creative.
My journey to Forma
It all started with a job advertisement where I learned that Forma, which was then known as Spacemaker, could combine more of my interests. First, my approach to design matched well with Forma’s. As a young architect in Copenhagen, I was trained to develop many design schemes in parallel and build physical models to study and evaluate them. Rather than choosing one direction from the start, we tested and analyzed different directions. Now, we have this great technology that can do a lot of this – and much more. This will potentially revolutionize the architecture and building industry because we’re able to make intelligent decisions based on real data and investigate hundreds of solutions at the same time and in only a few minutes.
My current workday is very different compared to when I was an architect. From being an architect who designs buildings, I’ve become an architect who helps develop the tools architects and developers use – I’m more of a design process coach now. I focus on the desired outcome from the design process and the conditions that will improve the solution to help the user reach their end goal. This connects well with my upbringing and understanding of being creative. My mom was a painter, and my father is a musician. Their art has always relied on tools – the brush and the piano – and now, I’m diving into improving the tools that will shape how architects design tomorrow’s buildings and cities.
I’ve always liked getting to know new people, and I’m also curious about how different organizations work. Currently, I’m working with some new customers and training them on how to use Forma – it’s a lot of fun to see how quickly they learn the software. Forma can add value in many different ways. But like with all new technology, it starts with the people and what they’re trying to achieve.
The big transition with being more integrated with Autodesk (Spacemaker was acquired in 2020) is the increased scale of the customers we are working with. This means that there is potential to create more in-depth relationships with our customers and really get to know their design processes. Whereas before, I was working mostly with Nordic customers, I now get to work with customers from all over the world, from Australia and Singapore to Japan and the United States.
Building the future
Previously, one of my favorite parts about my job was being part of the team that develops Forma webinars. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged us to explore new ways to communicate and collaborate, and this is really one of the good things that have come out of this strange period. Personally, it challenged me to go in front of the camera – which is not something I learned in architecture school. I’m really a people person. But I’ve had to reinvent my way of connecting with people whom I would normally meet in real life but who are all now sitting on the other side of the screen, somewhere on planet Earth, through the camera lens.
Growth is important in Forma, in general, as our software is expanding into new markets – this keeps us in a state of constant change. Autodesk focuses on growing talent from the inside, which provides us with opportunities to test ourselves in new roles or even form our own roles. To me, professional growth is about getting the opportunity to dive into the topics that I care deeply about. I have always believed that this will bring me to the best people and to the right place in my career.
I enjoy being part of a multidisciplinary team and that we’re still on this quest for answers. At Forma, we still have this enormous task and adventure ahead of us – one building and neighborhood at a time, we’re changing the world for the better.
Want to help design and make a better world for all? Join us!