TeliaSonera poaches Anders Olsson from Tele2 for COO role

Swedish telco continues its strategic overhaul following the collapse of its proposed Danish move with Telenor by appointing Anders Olsson as Chief Operating Officer.

Olsson had previously been CCO at Swedish multinational CSP Tele2, where he had been since 1997 and risen through the ranks. His role at Tele2 had in fact changed late last year to EVP of Strategic Projects, a position Tele2 doesn’t plan to maintain after Olsson’s departure, which implies the position was effectively glorified gardening leave.

“I am very pleased that we have been able to attract Anders to join TeliaSonera,” said Johan Dennelind, CEO of TeliaSonera. “He has a long career in a successful company and his leadership and experience will be very valuable in the next phase of shaping of TeliaSonera.”

“I would like to thank Anders for his commitment and contributions to Tele2 over the past 19 years,” said Allison Kirkby, CEO of Tele2. “He leaves a legacy that he should be very proud of, and myself and the Tele2 family wishes him every success in the future.”

TeliaSonera announced a bunch of strategic tweaks in October of last year, including the merging of its fixed and mobile interests in Lithuania and the combination of its commercial and tech groups under Chief Commercial Officer Sören Abildgaard, who was previously CEO of Telia Denmark.

“The combined Group Commercial and Group Technology unit is critical for us to succeed with commercial excellence, technology leadership and our transformation program,” said Dennelind at the time. “We have a strong team and I am really happy to see talented colleagues stepping up.” The appointment of Olsson implies the flow of internal executive talent may be running dry.