Hanken School of Economics

Executive Vice President & Group Executive Board Member  -  General Manager of Consumer Businesses at Fortum Corporation

EQT is a purpose-driven global private equity investment firm, with a Nordic heritage and more than EUR 240 billion in assets under management, across 27 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas with total sales of approximately EUR 30 billion and more than 175,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership. www.eqtgroup.com

EQT Group

Industrial and Investment Advisor (Telecom, Media & Technology)

Valo Ventures I Limited Partnership Fund is the independent venture capital fund lead by General Partner Scott Tierny, the former co-founder of Google Capital. The fund invests in startups, at the intersection of digital and the global megatrends of climate change, empowered consumers, urbanization, and bio/circular economy, primarily in the United States and Europe. Valo Ventures is based in Silicon Valley, California, USA. Investing for a brighter future. www.valoventures.org

Valo Ventures

Board Member

International publicly-listed Eurotop-300 integrated energy services provider. 

Responsible as part of the Group Executive Board for creating and executing the group strategy, preparing group strategic plans, and deciding on group investments, acquisitions, mergers and divestments, for the group comprising of ca EUR 10 billion in sales and ca 3 billion in EBITDA, with ca EUR 20 billion in assets under management, and a ca 5,000 person team. Key achievements incl achieving all group mid-term financial targets, improving EBITDA by 2.4x, and having invested+divested businesses for ca EUR 10+5bn since start of the tenure.  

Responsible with my Customer Solutions Leadership Team for Fortum’s B2C & B2B businesses' overall strategic, financial and operational execution and performance, accounting for ca EUR 3 billion in sales and ca EUR 150 million in EBITDA, serving ca 2.5 million customers in approx. 30 countries, with a ca 1500 person team. Key achievements include delivering full synergies from the EUR 500m acquisition of a Norwegian company, i.e. a full calender year earlier than communicated at the time of the acquisition in 2017, reporting 15 consecutive quarters of year-on-year financial performance improvement, and expanding digital service businesses internationally. 

I have addiitonally been responsible as the Group Executive Board member for one of Fortum's four strategic group-reaching development programs for 2019-2021, so-called Must-Win-Battles, called Develop Sales and Commercialization Excellence, setting up the EUR-150-million international venture capital fund called Valo Ventures I LP Fund and recruiting Scott Tierny, the former co-founder of Google Capital, as the Managing Partner for the fund, and been accountable for Fortum's large corporate customers. 

Performance data available e.g. here https://www.fortum.com/about-us/investors/reports-and-presentations and here http://www.nasdaqomxnordic.com/aktier/microsite?languageId=1&Instrument=HEX24271

Fortum

Executive Vice President & Group Executive Board Member | President of Fortum Consumer Solutions

Global digital community services company with more than 300m registered teenagers worldwide.

Sulake

Chairman of the Board

International publicly-listed Eurotop-500 telecommunications services provider.

Owner of largest worldwide corporate-level core business process, with cross-business and cross-functional development and operations overseeing responsibility, at EUR 1,500m annual revenues publicly-listed company.

Elisa Corporation

Worldwide Business Process Owner - Corporate-wide B2C & B2B Offering

Leading Northern European internet video-on-demand technology and services firm.

Voddler

Member of the Board of Directors

International publicly-listed Eurotop-500 telecommunications services provider.
	
Accountable personally for creating the Consumer Business strategy, which accounts for ca 2/3 of the whole firm and ca EUR 1bn in annual revenues, at ca EUR-8bn-market-cap firm. Initiated strategy execution by founding new technology driven digital services businesses, focused at selected worldwide customer segments, with full P&L responsibility and 360 degree business strategy and operations overseeing responsibility as intrapreneur. Fetched financing for business plan, recruited management team of senior professionals, launched new focused offering to customers and defined operational processes. Moreover, held worldwide owner role for the largest core business process of the firm, Service and Offering Development (08/11-08/13). Reported to the group deputy-CEO. 

Key achievements during the period include

1) As part of the Excecutive Board team, improved the Consumer Business EBIT 15 consecutive quarters on a year-on-year comparison basis, revenue growth to >10% yoy, EBITDA-margin to >35%, customer recommendation rate (NPS) to >30, mobile data usage per capita to global all-time high (>10Gb/SIM/month), and the firm’s valuation to 12x EV/EBITDA and the absolute high-end of the European sector peer group range, and increased the share price 4x reaching post-tech-bubble all-time-high, at the end of the tenure. 

2) Personally with my team, founded and grew the New Digital Services Businesses customer revenues 100x, i.e. to more than EUR 100m annually during 6th year of operation, with black numbers ahead of plan, serving ca 3 million monthly active users from more than 150 countries in 10 languages, with a 10‐person leadership team of directors and ca 600 full‐time persons under leadership, from main campuses in London, Madrid and Helsinki. 

More performance data available e.g. in this Capital Markets Day material attached below, particularly parts labelled "Digital Services".

SVP & Consumer Business Executive Board Member | General Manager of New Digital Services Businesses

International publicly-listed Eurotop-500 telecommunications services provider.
	
Accountable for running corporate-level Strategy, Business Development, Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate Internal & External Venturing, and Business Analysis & Intelligence, functions. Lead 12-person team of 5 senior professionals and 7 associates, with full cost-centre responsibility for the unit. Oversaw the screening of ca 150 acquisition/divestment cases within the areas of high-growth digital technologies, software, communications services and IT solutions. Cases closed ranged from small strategic investments to larger integrated acquisitions, with a cumulative deal value of EUR 700m during this period. Personally accountable for putting in place the Enterprise Customers unit’s, with revenues above EUR 600m, digital software services and technologies based turnaround business strategy and transformational customer-process focused new offering. Member of the Enterprise Customers Executive Board, responsible for Business Development. Reported to the Corporate Executive Board. 

Key achievements during the period include achieving market leadership positions in all domestic key business areas, the firm’s net profit improving by some EUR 50m each year, and the total shareholder return reaching above 50%, during this period. 

More detailed performance data available eg. in this Capital Markets Day material attached below.

Vice President and Head of Corporate Strategy and M&A | Enterprise Business Executive Board Member

Global publicly-listed financial services provider with operations in 63 countries and some 110,000 employees.

Globally accountable for the EUR 45bn Nordic telecoms and internet services large-cap sectors, at the bank’s Global Equity Capital Markets business division. Member of the Global Sector Team. Founded and lead franchise of 5-person senior investment professionals based out of UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Possessed complete accountability for commission revenues, market share and client rankings. Personally responsible for named institutional investor clients worldwide. Reported to the Global Head and Nordic Head of Equities. 

Key achievements during the period include improving client rankings, i.e. achieving #1 position in the annual Prospera Pan-Nordic Institutional Fund Manager 2003 client ranking, achieving client commision revenues market share leadership in all covered Nordic countries. 

During this period the firm’s market capitalization remained flat at ca EUR 35bn. However, shortly after this period the firm was acquired in a deal worth USD 99bn, the most valuable transaction in the history of the financial services industry to that date.

ABN AMRO Bank N.V.

Director and Global Head of Nordic Sector

Privately-held EUR 300m-turnover high-growth emerging market mobile services challenger.

Kick-started corporate level Business analysis, Budgeting, Product management, and Handset warehouse functions. Lead 8-person team of local professionals, with cost-center responsibility for the department. Assigned to firm by the main shareholders Sonera, Telenor and KPN. Reported to the Corporate Executive Group and to the Board of Directors. Completed set-up ahead of time.

Pannon

General Manager and Department Head

International publicly-listed Eurotop-500 telecommunications services and enabling technologies provider. 

Accountable for setting up and running international business development and analysis teams twice, with 6 and 10 persons respectively. Lead cross-functional strategy, business planning, budgeting and business development projects on divisional level, involving up to 50 persons. Had personal responsibility for digital/online domain expertise as strategy core team member in corporate strategy and international growth strategy formation. Evaluated venture capital deal flow originating from world-class international venture capital partners in US, Europe and Israel. Was accountable for all capital market listing and placing activities with regards to the firm’s international mobile assets in nine countries, including USA, Russia, Turkey and countries in Eurasia. 

During the period the number of international mobile customers increased 38x, i.e. from 0.5 million to 19 million, and the  firm’s market capitalization increased 8x from EUR 6bn to EUR 49bn.

Sonera

Manager, Corporate Venturing and International Mobile Operations

Leading internationally accredited Scandinavian business school.

Founded the school's Digital Business Program, as an absolute forerunner among business schools globally. Planned and delivered international teaching modules to a total of ca. 300 graduate and undergraduate students of up to 8 nationalities. Managed scientific research projects and corporate sponsor partnerships, with e.g. IBM, Alma Media, Finnair and Telecom Finland. Doctoral Candidate at the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Business and Economics program. Reported to the Faculty Chairman as well as the School’s Dean.

Hanken Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration

Project Director and Assistant Professor

Privately-held strategy advisory start-up which grew to 45 persons in Scandinavia, Benelux and Asia.

Founding team member accountable for set-up of company-wide information collection, analysis, synthesis, project reporting as well as client project management activities. Responsible for leading subprojects and -teams in strategy advisory assignments for Finnish and Nordic Top50 firms within financial services, airline services, retail services, hospitality services and public services sectors. Customers included e.g. Finnair, Sampo, Swedbank, Fortum and Canon. Reported to the firm’s CEO. Completed graduate school betweenwhiles.

Vectia

Strategy Consultant and Founding Team Member

Global publicly-listed Eurotop-300 information technology hardware provider.

Responsible for planning, implementing and training a pricing tool and process for the sales force utilizing spot prices at the London Metals Exchange and currency exchange spot prices. 

During the period the firm’s market capitalization increased 5x from EUR 0.6bn to EUR 3.2bn.

Mikael Ronnblad