Meet Karl – Our new Managing Director in Sweden!

Thanks! It’s a pleasure to be onboard! For the past 6 years, I was the CEO of start up company working with a SaaS solution for football analytics via Wi-Fi in mobile phones. When I heard of the opportunity to join Skytech Control and build up the Swedish part of the business, it sounded like a really interesting challenge and in a field, B2B sales of a SaaS solution, that I was familiar with. The fact that Skytech Control had a proven track record in Norway and some really good companies on the customer list also added to the attraction.

I have always been interested in working internationally and I must say that the highlight so far is living in Hong Kong for 4 years and handling business in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa for a sports marketing company. It was a big step to move with the family to Asia but we enjoyed every minute of it. I got to travel extensively and do business in a variety of cultures, all with their own peculiarities.

I recently turned 50, so unfortunately, I have to describe myself as a middle aged man nowadays… I live in Stockholm with my wife, two teenage sons and a daughter who is just turning 10 (born in Hong Kong!). Naturally I spend a lot of time with the family and we have a summerhouse next to the best beach and the best golf course in Sweden (Tylösand), so we spend as much time there as we can there. I try to counter my interest in good food and wine with working out a couple of times per week but its a losing battle…

I was lucky enough to join MTG (TV3, Viasat etc) as management trainee after I graduated from law school and spent a couple of years in the commercial TV world at the start of my career. I’ve always also had a big interest in sports and played both rugby and handball growing up. Fortunately I got to combine my interest in sports and media when I joined IEC in Sports, which was a Swedish based sports rights agency with a big international footprint. Both MTG and IEC were highly entrepreneurial companies with a strong sales culture and it came in very handy when I switched to the tech start up scene, since it’s still all about pushing the sales and being creative when it comes to finding new business.

After spending a week in Norway and a couple of weeks at the office in Stockholm, getting to know both my new colleagues and the product more in detail, I feel even more convinced that Skytech Control has something big going on. There is a lot of activity, on sales, product development and tech. There is for sure more to be done but the fact that we already see a lot of customers and partners making savings, both in time and money, using our product is a positive sign. The important thing now will be to get our partners going with their marketing efforts of the product, which will make a huge impact on the number of subs.

As always, it’s easier to start with the low hanging fruits and piggy back on the success in Norway. There are quite a few of the partners and customers in Norway with business in Sweden as well and the aim is to convince them to implement Skytech Control in Sweden as well. However, we are pushing hard to add a number of partners and customers of our own and are currently reaching out to potential customers on a daily basis.

With the current, uncertain financial situation in the World, it’s even more important for companies and organizations to be in control of their costs and to be able to save time and money when handling on and off boarding of employees. I believe that Skytechs self service solution plays perfectly into this. I also believe that the opportunity for employees to upgrade their gadgets through the self financing part of the system will be a great way for companies to offer the employees top notch equipment without wrecking the purchase policy’s in place. The system benefits both the finance, IT and HR departments of all companies as well as the employees, so it’s really a win-win for all.

It always comes down to having a solid product and as far as I have seen and heard, Skytech Control is the only solution which combines gadget management with invoice handling and financing solutions. That combined with really good customer and partner cases, such as KPMG, Telia, Elkjöp/Elgiganten, Multiconsult etc, lays a good foundation. The rest is up to efficient sales and marketing teams and from what I have seen so far, we have some really good guys onboard in all countries.

As you have figured out already, I’m a big sports fan and throughout my life, I’ve been a huge supporter of Malmö FF. I see it as one of my biggest accomplishments that I’ve managed to make my kids Malmö FF fans as well, even though they have never lived in the south of Sweden. It took a lot of brain washing and regular trips to the souvenir shop but now they are hard core fans!