Personal life

He was born in Bergen

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

 as the youngest son of factory owner and ship-owner Peter Jebsen

Peter Jebsen

Peter Jebsen was a Norwegian businessperson and politician.After working in the cloth industry for a relative in Hamburg, he moved to Bergen in 1843, bought a river in Arna for 200 specidaler borrowed money and started manufacturing cloth; as one of the first manufactures in the country, profits...

 (1824–1892) and Sophie Catharina Sundt (1849–1912). He was a brother of Kristian Gerhard Sundt Jebsen and maternal grandson of Christian Gerhard Ameln Sundt. In 1917 he married attorney's daughter Lilla Døscher. He was a granduncle of Kristian Gerhard Jebsen

Kristian Gerhard Jebsen

Kristian Gerhard Jebsen was a Norwegian ship-owner.He was born in Bergen as a son of ship-owner Kristian Jebsen and Sissi Kjerland . He was a great-grandson of factory owner and ship-owner Peter Jebsen, grandson of Kristian Gerhard Sundt Jebsen and grandnwphew of Gustav Adolf Jebsen. He was also...

 and Atle Jebsen

Atle Jebsen

Atle Jebsen was a Norwegian businessperson and ship-owner.Jebsen was born in Bergen in 1935 and was a great-grandson of Peter Jebsen. He was one of the most important persons in the Norwegian shipping during the turbulent 1960s and created the Jebsen Group during the 1970s.Atle Jebsen died in a...

, and an uncle of Kristian Jebsen.

Career

Jebsen finished education in machine engineering at Bergen technical school at the age of seventeen, and studied chemistry at the Technische Hochschule Hannover and the Royal Technical College of Charlottenburg. He took the doctorate in Zurich

ETH Zurich

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....

 in 1905 with the thesis Zur Kenntnis der Phenoxymucobrom- und Chlorsäure als aromatische Verbindungen. From 1905 to 1906 he studied at Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

.

In 1906 he was hired in Sam Eyde

Sam Eyde

Samuel Eyde was a Norwegian engineer and industrialist, the founder of Norsk Hydro and Elkem.-Biography:Sam Eyde was the son of a shipowner, and studied engineering in Berlin where he graduated in 1891. He started his career in Hamburg, working with the railways where he planned new lines, bridges...

's company Elektrokemisk

Elkem

Elkem is one of Norway's largest industrial companies, and one of the world's leading suppliers of metals and materials. The company's main products are aluminium, energy and silicon as well as specialised products such as ferrosilicon to foundries, microsilica and carbon...

. Together with Peder Farup he discovered and innovated the use of titanium dioxide

Titanium dioxide

Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium oxide or titania, is the naturally occurring oxide of titanium, chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6, or CI 77891. Generally it comes in two different forms, rutile and anatase. It has a wide range of...

 as the pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...

 titanium white

Titanium dioxide

Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium oxide or titania, is the naturally occurring oxide of titanium, chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6, or CI 77891. Generally it comes in two different forms, rutile and anatase. It has a wide range of...

; together with the exploitation of the Søderberg electrode, this was the most important innovation during Jebsen's time.

The process of producing titanium white was figured out in 1914. Before that, Jebsen had become chief executive officer of Elektrokemisk in 1912. In 1916 he became chairman of the new company Titan Co. which produced titanium dioxide. In 1919 he briefly served as the first president of the Federation of Norwegian Industries

Federation of Norwegian Industries (1919–1989)

The Federation of Norwegian Industries was an employers' organisation in Norway. It existed between 1919 and 1989, and was one of the main organisations in the field. In 1989 it became a part of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise through a merger....

. During the post-war

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 economic crisis he had to leave Elektrokemisk in 1920, but became chief executive officer of Titan Co. in 1924. The shares in Titan Co. plummeted until being bought in 1927 by the American corporation National Lead along with the patent rights for titanium white. Jebsen was hired in National Lead, and worked out of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, from 1929 as chief executive of Titan Co. Inc in Europe. The corporation included companies such as Titangesellschaft in Germany and British Titan Products.

In 1940 Jebsen moved from Paris to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. In 1943 Nygaardsvold's Cabinet, exiled from Norway because of the war, named industrial committees consisting of expatriates in London and New York, and Jebsen worked for the New York-based committee. For his work here he was decorated as a Knight, First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav after the war, in 1946. He died in January 1951 in London.