Unibet New chief executive appointed

Taking many industry observers by surprise this week is the announcement by the European online gambling group Unibet that its high profile CEO Petter Nylander has resigned, and will be replaced by CFO and deputy chief exec Henrik Tjärnström.
 
No reason was given for Nylander's resignation, who leaves after five years as the top man in the company and will apparently continue to advise senior management as a consultant.
 
Announcing the moves, Unibet chairman Anders Ström said: “During Petter's leadership, the company has increased the number of customers four-fold, tripled the turnover and doubled the profit after tax. This has been five good years."
 
Ström added that Nylander's replacement is already deeply involved in corporate strategies at Unibet through his duties as Nylander's deputy.
 
Tjärnström, joined Unibet on 1 April 2008, and was formerly a non-executive Unibet director on the Unibet board, on which he served for five years. He also has management experience with Swedish construction group Skanska.
 
Tjarnstrom commented that the market and the industry is entering a new phase and said he believed that the Unibet group has strong potential to build on its industry positioning going forward.
 
"In particular our restructuring to develop separate B2B and B2C businesses gives us a clearer focus and more opportunities for co-operation with other companies in the industry," he said.
 
Graham Stretch, who is currently the head of Unibet's accounting division,will take over as CFO – for now on an acting basis.