Telenor Appoints Kaaren Hilsen to head new tower company

Kaaren Hilsen, current CEO of Telenor Sweden, has been appointed as CEO of Telenor Tower Holding AS from 1 September 2021.

Hilsen will become the first CEO of Telenor Group’s newly established tower company, a holding company to gather all of Telenor’s tower activities in the Nordics under one unit that will report directly to the Group CFO.

Ambitions to identify and carve out tower and infrastructure assets as separate business lines were communicated at Telenor’s Capital Markets Day in 2020. The establishment of the new tower company is the next step in the previously stated ambitions of driving operational improvements and unlock value in the tower infrastructure portfolio.

“Tower infrastructure is a strategically important area for Telenor. We need a dedicated CEO and management team to drive value creation, and Kaaren is the right person to take on this challenge,” says Tone Hegland Bachke, EVP and CFO of Telenor Group.

Hilsen has served as CEO of Telenor Sweden since 1 March 2019 and has since her appointment steered the company on a transformation journey modernising the company’s network, platforms and way of work as well as beginning the 5G rollout in Sweden.

“I am excited to take on the position as CEO of Telenor Tower Holding AS as the new company will play an important part for Telenor Group’s ability to drive and unlock value going forward. At the same time, it’s with a heavy heart I have decided to leave Telenor Sweden. In some ways, I feel that I am leaving too early as I would have liked to see more of the results of the new strategy and the big transformation we have gone through over the past few years,” says Hilsen.

“I want to thank Kaaren for leading Telenor Sweden in a challenging period characterised by strong competition in the market. As CEO she has laid the foundation for a solid turnaround, and the strategy she and her management team has put in place has started to yield the desired results in Sweden,” says Sigve Brekke, President and CEO of Telenor Group.

Telenor is in the process of hiring Hilsen’s successor as CEO of Telenor Sweden.