Aksel Bratvedt was born in Norway on June 25, 1957. He received his education at the Norwegian Institute of Technology under the Physics Department, Msc (Siv.Ing) with a thesis on simulation of costs/time factors in the building of the Statfjord platforms for Statoil. Aksel Bratvedt also pursued and MBA in Finance from 1982-1984 at the University of California in Los Angeles.