Telenor loses three more board members

Norwegian Telco Telenor has announced three board members, including Deputy Chairman Frank Dangeard, have resigned.

In a stock exchange filing Telenor announced it was putting forward two new names for election to the board, to be voted on at a Corporate Assembly meeting following the Telenor AGM on Wednesday. “The proposed candidates will succeed Frank Dangeard and Marit Vaagen, who have requested to be relieved from the Board of Directors,” said the statement. “In addition Burckhard Bergmann has asked to be relieved of his duty as Director.”

These are just the latest executive resignations to come in the wake of the Vimpelcom Uzbekistan scandal, following the departure of the CFO and General Counsel ten days ago and the resignation of the previous Chairman last year. Usually companies hope one or two high-profile sacrifices are sufficient to draw a line under corporate scandals but, ahead of the AGM it seems to have been decided that a further cull was required.

Dangeard has been Deputy Chairman of Telenor for five years on top of his role as Managing Partner of Harcourt and non-exec board positions at Symantec, Atari and RPX. He had previously been CEO and Chairman of Thomson/Technicolor and deputy CEO of France Telecom. Marit Vaagen had been a member of the ethics committee for three years and is the CEO of Sirona AB, a healthcare management company. Burckhard Bergmann had been a director since 2008 and is also on the board of a few German companies.

Ptential new board member Jacob Aqraou was at eBay for 13 years, including positions as SVP of Europe Middle East and Africa, and GM of the eBay Classifieds Group, but now seems to be a professional board member. The other is Siri Beate Hatlen, who has a background from various management positions within private and public sector in Norway, including EVP of Statkraft and CEO of Oslo University Hospital.