Biography

Christian Schoyen is a Norwegian-born global headhunter, the founder and active CEO of Executive Search Research (ESR), serving clients worldwide in senior leadership recruitment. He is also a behavioral futurist.

Schoyen’s primary professional focus is executive search, where he works directly with clients on leadership placement and advisory assignments; his film and writing work exist solely to document and communicate the systems underlying that practice. In these media, he examines how repeated human decisions shape individual lives, organizations, and communities over time.

A direct descendant of Viking King Gudröd Ragnvaldsson, Schoyen integrates ancient Norse governance principles-particularly the Althing system-into modern leadership, behavioral systems, and civic transformation. He applies this framework through ESR, which he founded in 1997. Prior to founding ESR, he held positions at two of the world's leading executive search firms: Ward Howell International (Los Angeles/Chicago) and A.T. Kearney Executive Search (Scandinavia). Through ESR, he has completed more than 5,000 senior leadership placements for Fortune 1000 companies globally. His executive search methodology is documented in his U.S. bestseller "Secrets of the Executive Search Experts", described by Korn Ferry Vice Chairman Melanie Kusin as "an excellent primer for search professionals."

Schoyen is best known in film for the multi-award-winning documentary Vegas Vikings (2014), which documents a game-based community intervention model he created, rooted in Norse Althing philosophy. Initially validated in Las Vegas, the model achieved crime reductions of more than 75% in just 21 days in high-risk neighborhoods using zero tax funding. The game later expanded to other U.S. cities and, now in its tenth year, continues to achieve similar results. The model has been presented to law enforcement leadership nationwide through ESR’s CSR program, the non-profit Neighborhood Rescue of America. The project was launched in conjunction with the introduction of Leif Erikson Day (2013) and has since evolved into a long-running civic framework in the United States.

Through his Los Angeles-based production company, Creating Legends, Schoyen develops documentaries, narrative, and game-based media that examine human behavior and systemic change. His earlier film Living the Dream (2006) , starring Danny Trejo and Sean Young, distributed by Paramount Pictures, explores how early conditioning and negative influences can shape adult behavior. The Los Angeles Times review said, "It's downright misanthropic ... with the most hostile cinematic view of Los Angeles since Crash. There is undeniable heart in Living the Dream, with its implicit criticism of mercenary values". The film’s theme of childhood input shaping adult outcomes is a core pillar of Schoyen’s analytical work.

Across three decades of executive search, behavioral observation, and civic experimentation, Schoyen formalized his research into The Schoyen Algorithm(TM) - a decision-pattern extraction framework that identifies an individual's personal operating system (OS) by isolating what they repeatedly do over time, independent of titles, narratives, or self-description. This framework underpins his recruitment methodologies, books, films, and civic initiatives. LifeScript.ai(TM) serves as the operational interface of this work - a personal alignment tool for high achievers that reveals long-term decision patterns beyond titles, roles, and self-description - making visible what drives performance, decisions, and legacy. Guided by the question: What remains when the story is removed?

Schoyen’s upcoming GoViking with Christian Schoyen series further explores how structured challenges and feedback loops drive personal and collective transformation.

He holds a BBA from Pacific Lutheran University and conducted his African American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Schoyen works out of Los Angeles, New York, London, and Stockholm.
- IMDb mini biography by: CREATING LEGENDS

Christian did intensive training with method acting teacher Jeff Conaway, learning to enter other peoples 'bubble of reality' to understand their thought process. Jeff suggested the behavioral case study leading to Living the Dream.