Kaj-Erik Relander (born 21 June 1962) is a Finnish businessman and investor. He became well-down during his short tenure as the CEO of the Finnish telecommunications compnay

Sonera Telia Company AB is a Swedish multinational telecommunications company and mobile network operator present in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Telia also owns TV4 Media which includes TV4 in Sweden, MTV Oy in F ...

, during which the company lost over 3 billion euros as a result of unsuccessful deals in German

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

licences, Currently he is a board member at DU - telecom operator in Dubai, UAE. Relander is a board member at BookIT Oy, which is a Finnish mobile transactions

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

-company, member of the board at SES, a satellite operator in Luxembourg, member of the board at Starzplay Arabia, a streaming video service operating in Middle East and North Africa. Advisory board memberships include Limestone, which is a Finnish cloud based service platform for fund managers and Mustard Seed, a London-based impact investment fund and advisory services company. Relander is a founding partner of SEQ Capital Partners, a technology and internet services investment partnership based in Zurich, Switzerland. He is working as a senior independent with

Mubadala Development Company Mubadala Investment Company PJSC ( ar, شركة مبادلة للاستثمار), or simply Mubadala, is an Emirati state-owned holding company that acts as a sovereign wealth fund. The company was established in 2017 when then-named Mubadala Dev ...

, which is the Sovereign Weatlh Fund of Abu Dhabi Government. Relander holds the chairmanship of Investment Committee at Apis Partners, which is a private equity fund focusing on fintech for midmarket in Africa and Asia. Additionally he works as an independent advisor to certain family offices in Abu Dhabi and Zurich. Relander is keen supporter of charity work and serves as a Chairman at Refugees United Foundation. From 2009 to 2013, Relander worked as a Chief Investment Officer for Emirates Investment Authority (EIA), which is the Sovereign Wealth Fund of UAE Federal Government. From 2006 to 2009, Relander worked for the

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

firm Accel Partners in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. He is best known for his tenure in the Finnish telecommunications company

, where he was CEO for six months in 2001 before forced to resign after the company lost billions of euros due to unsuccessful deals in UMTS licenses. In 2002, Sonera merged with the Swedish telecommunications company Telia. In 2005, Relander was convicted by a Finnish court of having violated communications

privacy laws Privacy law is the body of law that deals with the regulating, storing, and using of personally identifiable information, personal healthcare information, and financial information of individuals, which can be collected by governments, public or ...

between 1997 and 2001, with the court finding he had ordered an unlawful review of employee phone logs in order to determine who had leaked confidential company information to media. More than 80 Sonera employees, including several board members, had been cited as plaintiffs in the case, in which six senior Sonera executives were charged.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Relander, Kaj-Erik 1962 births Living people Finnish investors 20th-century Finnish businesspeople 21st-century Finnish businesspeople Finnish chairpersons of corporations