T orstein Hagen is a Norwegian billionaire and the founder and chairman of Viking, one of the world's leading and fastest-growing cruise line companies. After a career as a management consultant and as an executive at a shipping company, he founded Viking River Cruises in 1997 with the purchase of four river cruise ships in Russia. He identified and successfully targeted a niche in the market: providing culturally immersive river cruises on the waterways of Europe, catering primarily to an older, affluent, and English-speaking demographic.

This strategy was a massive success, and he built Viking into the largest river cruise operator in the world. He has since expanded the business dramatically into ocean cruises with the launch of Viking Ocean Cruises, and into expedition cruises, with a fleet of modern, Scandinavian-designed, all-veranda ships. His focus on a specific customer segment and his distinctive branding have been key to the company's incredible growth. He now resides in Switzerland, where the company is headquartered, and successfully took the company public in a major 2024 IPO.