Teleconference with TeliaSonera. The reason we're here is the fact that Johan Dennelind has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and President of this company. My name is Solomon Bekele. I'm head of media relations, and will moderate this telephone conference/webcast/press conference. With me here on the stand will be Marie Ehrling, Per-Arne Blomquist, and our newly appointed CEO, Johan Dennelind. We will have microphones available for those of you who want to ask questions. I ask you to not start asking your questions until you have a microphone so that everyone can hear. I will alternate and take calls from the teleconference as well as from the stand here in the room. We will start with a brief introduction by the chairman, Marie Ehrling, and after some comments from Johan Dennelind, we will open up the floor for questions and answers.
Afterwards, there will be time for one-on-one interviews for those of you who want to do that. Please, my colleagues over there, Josefin Arnesson and Irene Kron are available to take notes of those who are interested in comments. Now, Marie Ehrling, welcome, Johan Dennelind and Per-Arne Blomquist, please.
Good morning, everyone. Once again, most welcome to this press meeting and webcasted conference. I'm very pleased today to inform that we have in place a strong executive management team of TeliaSonera. I'm delighted that Johan Dennelind will join the company already in 2 weeks from now, July 1st. You will take over as CEO September 1st. From that day, Per-Arne Blomquist will continue as Executive Vice President and CFO of TeliaSonera. We have conducted a rigorous recruitment process over the last 2 months. It's been actually the most prioritized item that we have had on the board's agenda since April, and the work has been led by myself and my 2 colleagues in the Remuneration Committee, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo and Mats Jansson. We believe that Johan Dennelind actually lives up to our main search criteria.
The criteria that we have looked for is, of course, strong and extensive leadership skills. For me, I think this is actually the most important item, to be able to be a strong leader. We think that Johan really personalized that and personalized good leadership and good values, which is very important. Experience of developing international corporations, including proven record of leading companies in change processes. Of course, Johan also has a broad knowledge of the telecom industry, almost 20 years behind you. It's also good to know that you have been working in very complicated and demanding markets, such as Africa, for example. You will come back to that in your own comments.
On top of that, I think it's a bonus that you also have been working for Telia AB back in the '90s, and started as a management trainee in 1995 here at Telia. That is good as well to have that experience. I know I will get a lot of questions about remuneration, I think I'll take it up front. TeliaSonera is a company that has a different, or at least different if you compare it to most large cap companies at the Swedish Stock Exchange. We have a system with a fixed salary and a pension scheme with defined contribution pension. The yearly salary that Johan will get is SEK 13.6 million, and on top of that, he will get 30% defined contribution. That's the remuneration. It's very simple and it's very transparent. That's TeliaSonera.
I am convinced that in Johan, we have found the right person, and I know that you are very devoted and committed to lead TeliaSonera into the future. Please, Johan.
Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted and excited and thrilled to have been given this vote of confidence of leading TeliaSonera into the future. Also very humble towards the task ahead. There is also some challenges that are facing us in the industry. On a personal note, I think it's also great to be coming back to TeliaSonera, where I actually started my career back in the '90s, as the Chairman just said. TeliaSonera has always had a special place in my heart through my career, and hopefully I can now pay back to the great start that I got in life. TeliaSonera is a great company from the outside and for me, and I'm really looking forward to take part of the opportunities and challenges that face us.
I think TeliaSonera is extremely well-placed for the future in the sweet spot of the industry. The industry is very fast-changing, as you know. If we are not fast-changing with the industry or actually leading the change in the industry, we are at great risk. Therefore, I see innovation as the crucial factor for us as telecom operators to survive in the future. We, as an industry, also have now a great responsibility of acting as good corporate citizens everywhere we operate, partly because our customers and consumers now demand our services so greatly, but also because societies are demanding responsible actions from us as operators. Of course, we are here to do that. Me personally, as the Chairman just said, I've been in the telecom industry for 20 years. I've been across continents.
I've been in three of the largest telcos in the industry, both Telia, Telenor, and Vodafone, Vodacom. I'm fascinated by the industry's current challenges and opportunities. I'm really looking forward to joining. Hopefully, I can bring passion and energy. That I can promise. Hopefully, I can also bring some new ideas and bring focus on people and culture, because those are things that I'm really passionate about. I think I also should mention a little bit about the recent history, because I've gotten some questions on that. We made a recent family decision to move back to Malaysia to head up the largest telco in the country, and that was back in December. During the spring, we have had personal family circumstances that have changed, which led us to reevaluate our decision, which we then made in the late spring.
That has nothing to do with this process, and I just want to reiterate that. I'm not going to go into the personal circumstances around my family. Again, I'm really excited about getting this opportunity. Thank you for the confidence and support, and I'm keen to get started. I think I'm going to stop there because I know there's going to be a lot of questions. Back to you, Chairman.
Thank you. Now it's time for questions. As Solomon said, we will take from the floor, and we will take by phone.
Yes. This press conference is primarily held in English, I know there are some requests for asking questions in Swedish, we can do a couple of those as well. Up front.
Yes, good morning. Sten Schulstad from Swedbank. I'm just wondering if you have an opinion about the footprint of TeliaSonera, how do you see that in the coming years? I'm thinking about the ratio, you think of expansion or scaling down, or how do you look at the footprint 5 years from now?
Well, thank you for the question, I think it's a little bit early to get into specifics about TeliaSonera's current strategy and footprint, I certainly will over the next couple of months. Generally speaking, I think a telecom operator of Telia's nature, with a mix of mature markets and emerging markets, is positive. Also with a mix of portfolios in terms of segments and industry, I think Telia is well-placed, as I said. Looking good. Another question from the podium here.
Lena Österberg from Carnegie. Well, welcome, I guess we should say, think you have a very great track record from emerging market operations, which will come in handy, you come from a genuine growth background. Just wondering a little bit on how you view the part of Telia which is not growing, how you'll take on that challenge in transforming the mature bits of TeliaSonera.
That's a good question. Again, I think we need to give me some time to get into the existing operations. Generally speaking, we have the same challenges across the industry, regardless of emerging or mature markets. It's about finding the right model for the future to face the challenges of the very fast-changing industry. That goes regardless of emerging or mature markets. Slightly different focus in the two extremes, you can use the same business model. Any questions from the telephone conference operator? Not yet.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again, star one to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Peter Nielsen. Please ask your question.
Thanks very much. Congratulations and welcome to TeliaSonera, firstly. I appreciate it's too early for you, I'm sure, to discuss any policy statements or strategic initiatives or anything. In your discussions with the Chairman and the rest of the Board, any indications now as what you will see as your key priorities and challenges for TeliaSonera going forward?
Well, thank you. My first challenge and my first priority is to make sure that I get well informed and well into the business before I comment any further on priorities or strategy or anything. I think the current management and Per-Arne Blomquist can comment on the existing operations. Any other question, operator, from the telephone conference?
Your next question comes from the line of Ulrich Rathe. Please ask your question.
Yeah, thanks. This question is related to what Lena started to debate. Your answer was that ultimately the challenges are very similar. I suppose there is a sense out there that in the more mature markets and regulation, the deflationary top line you get from regulation in Europe and the cost management it requires is a very fundamentally different job description compared to grabbing market share and growing markets. I was just wondering, what is your interest, especially because you originally planned to actually move on into emerging markets growth areas. What your sense is where your priorities in Sweden are going to be, and how you're going to focus on these more "so boring parts" of perhaps of the European side of things.
Well, thank you, Ulrich. I tend to disagree with you there. There's nothing boring within our industry, I have to say. I also agree with you that, or I agree with you rather that there are different approaches and then different value chains and the state of the business. There is something in common, and it's about culture and people. If you get that right, you can execute in various scenarios and various circumstances. Again, I will come back to that once I have a more informed view of the company. That's really a question for later.
Thank you.
Any questions from the room? We have one back there.
Thank you, Thomas Heath here with Handelsbanken. Welcome to TeliaSonera, of course, from us as well. You bring with you experience from two groups, Telenor and Vodafone, that have often been more integrated as operations between countries than at least in the past, TeliaSonera has been. Could you say something about how you view the integration between countries in a large telco like TeliaSonera? Do you see a trend towards integration, or would you say that operations are better off handled individually and separately? Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.
Thank you, Thomas. I'm not going to specifically comment on TeliaSonera, but as you rightly point out, the industry is changing, and the importance of various presence in both mobile and fixed is increasingly important. I think, as I said initially, TeliaSonera is well-placed with a mixed portfolio and a balanced portfolio of assets. I think it looks good from that perspective. Again, we have to come back to what it means specifically for TeliaSonera.
We have a question in Swedish here from Ekot. Our audience is mainly Swedish-speaking, Swedish radio.
Thank you very much. We'll go back to English. Are there any other questions here in the room? No questions? Telephone conference?
There are no questions from the phone lines.
In that case, I suggest that we pause here and then there will be time and a chance to do one-on-one interviews with the people on the podium here. As I said before, Josefin Arnesson over there, my colleague, and Irene Kron have control of the list, and we'll take it from there. Approach them, and thank you for taking your time and joining us at this press conference. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating.