- Geospatial Strategy & Geospatial Ecosystems
- Enterprise Transformation & Organisational Design
- Governance & Business Process Redesign
- Land Administration
- Addressing & Postcode Systems
- Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI/NSDI) & Enterprise GIS
- Executive Advisory & Programme Leadership
Carsten Bjornsson is an international geospatial strategist and consultant with more than 35 years of experience working at the intersection of geospatial technology, organisations and institutional change. He has helped governments and organisations plan, design, implement and sustain geospatial capabilities ranging from enterprise land information systems to national addressing, postcode and geospatial infrastructure programmes.
He spent 24 years with Esri, progressing from project and programme management through portfolio management and international subject-matter leadership to strategic business development. His work has taken him across North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean, working with national and regional governments, mapping and land agencies, postal organisations and other public-sector institutions. Major assignments have included the U.S. National Integrated Land System, Hong Kong’s Land Information System, Abu Dhabi’s Address, Geonames and Signage programme, Egypt’s national postcode system, Ethiopian national mapping modernisation and development of a grid-based postcode approach for the United Arab Emirates.
A defining characteristic of Carsten’s work is his tendency to look beyond the immediate technology or project requirement to understand the wider system in which it must succeed. He brings together governance, organisational structures, business processes, technology, data, people, institutional context, location and scale to understand how they interact and where change is required. This systems perspective has increasingly developed into his concept of geospatial ecosystems.
Carsten combines strategic thinking with substantial implementation experience. Having managed complex, multidisciplinary programmes as well as advised senior executives, he is comfortable moving between executive-level questions and the operational and technical realities of implementation. His approach is to make complexity understandable, establish a shared understanding among stakeholders and translate that understanding into practical strategies, organisational changes and implementation roadmaps.
His approach also reflects a strong academic and analytical foundation. Before joining Esri, he was an Assistant Professor at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, where he developed its GIS laboratory and curriculum and taught GIS, surveying, spatial analysis and planning-support systems. His research addressed spatial and temporal modelling, hydrology, landscape planning, heuristic optimisation and complex systems, with academic work and affiliations including Aalborg University, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and Ohio State University. His MSc thesis, based on work with New Zealand’s Department of Survey and Land Information, examined the implementation of New Zealand’s emerging national Land Information System, an early exploration of the organisational and institutional dimensions of geospatial transformation.
In 2026, Carsten established Geospatial Consult LLC to focus on strategic advisory, organisational diagnostics and the development of sustainable geospatial capability. He is the author of the forthcoming The Art of Cultivating Geospatial Ecosystems, which brings together lessons from more than three decades of research, implementation and strategic consulting.
Carsten is a systems-oriented and pragmatic consultant who is as interested in why an initiative will work within an organisation as in what should be built. He is comfortable working with executives, managers and technical specialists, and particularly effective where complex technical, organisational and institutional issues need to be connected, made understandable and turned into a practical way forward.