Swedish kit vendor Ericsson has announced the promotion of Erik Ekudden, who has been with the company for 24 years, to Chief Technology Officer.

Ekudden (pictured) replaces Ulf Ewaldsson, who was given the task of heading-up Ericsson’s Digital Services business group in the recent cabinet reshuffle. His full job title is Group CTO and Head of Technology & Architecture, which seems to encompass Ericsson’s strategic approach to the evolution of the network as a platform and ultimately its role in mega-trends like 5G and IoT.

“Ericsson continues to move with speed in revitalizing our technology leadership,” said Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm. “Erik has broad experience from the technology area, most recently from seven years in Silicon Valley. He is uniquely qualified to support customers and partners, prepare for the opportunities and challenges of the next wave of technology shifts around 5G, IoT, and digitalization.”

“With the development of 5G, we are building a platform for innovation that will create new business models for consumers and enterprises,” said Ekudden. “We see a fundamental shift in networks technology, which will be unprecedented in terms of speed and low latency. My mission will be to define the technology direction of Ericsson and to work closely with customers to design and operate those technologies in the most effective and efficient way. We will do this with a particular focus on the distributed cloud and evolution of mobile systems globally.”

Essentially Ekudden is in charge of keeping Ericsson relevant – no pressure then. As Ekholm indicated he has been based in Silicon Valley for the past seven years and this seems to be a big deal. That, combined with Ekudden’s talk of distributed cloud indicates a renewed focus on virtualization as a central pillar of Ericsson’s technology strategy for the foreseeable future.