Swedish equipment vendor Ericsson has announced Ulf Ewaldsson as its CTO, effective February 1. Ewaldsson is currently head of product area radio within Ericsson’s Business Unit Networks and a member of Ericsson’s research board.

Ewaldsson was involved in defining the creation of Ericsson products based on HSPA and LTE in the Radio Access Network and the Antenna Integrated Radio Unit (AIR).

He will be a member of Ericsson’s executive leadership team and will be based in Stockholm, Sweden. Therefore he will not take on the role as Head of Ericsson Silicon Valley, which Håkan Eriksson also had.

From February, Hakan Eriksson – a company lifer with 25 years notched up, the last nine as CTO – will be the head of the firm’s operations in three southern hemisphere markets: Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

It will be a big change in pace as he swaps responsibility for global technology leadership and a Silicon Valley uniform of khakis and polo shirts for a regional market where total population is some distance below 30 million and a pair of thongs.