Independent Investment Committee
In VIA equity Fund A, VIA equity Fund II, VIA equity Fund III and VIA equity Fund IV an Independent Investment Committee operates autonomously from the VIA equity team and consists of selected individuals approved by the Limited Partners in each fund.
The decision process for each of the VIA equity funds involves the VIA equity a/s team (all deal flow, structuring, communication, modelling, legal, due diligence, ESG, investment analysis and managerial work plus investment decisions and recommendations) and a fund specific Independent Investment Committee (the ultimate investment decision based on the investment recommendations prepared by the VIA equity a/s team).
The members of the Independent Investment Committees for VIA equity Fund A, VIA equity Fund II, VIA equity Fund III and VIA equity Fund IV are presently the same for each fund.
Communications, IT Software and Solutions Lars has been in the European IT and Communications Industry for over 20 years in various roles within Sales, Contact Center, E-business, Marketing & General Management.
Currently, Lars is Chief Executive Officer of Telenor Denmark. Prior to this, Lars was Head of IoT at Telenor Group ASA, and earlier Chief Business Officer and part of the management team of Telenor Denmark.
Before Telenor Lars was Director of Sales and Marketing Operations at KMD A/S, a leading Danish provider of IT solutions with a turnover of more than DKK 4 billion and with over 3,200 employees.
Earlier, Lars was heading DELL EMEA Solutions and before that Regional Sales Director for the UK & Ireland, Benelux & Nordics. In this capacity, Lars led approximately 2500 people and was responsible for managing sales revenues in two of Dell’s longest established and fastest growing markets. Previously, Lars was based at Dell’s EMEA Business Campus in Dublin, as Director of Dell’s Home and Small Business Division for the UK and Ireland, managing Consumer and B2B Sales.
Lars joined Dell in 1998 and was responsible for setting up the Nordic operation out of Copenhagen, Denmark. Lars also led Dell’s corporate business in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Prior to joining Dell, Lars held a number of senior positions at ICL in Denmark. Lars holds a Masters in Finance Management and Strategy from Copenhagen Business School and currently resides in Denmark.
Close
IT Strategy Executive and CEO of Reset Works.
Reset Works advises commercial and public sector companies on IT strategic development and transformation seeking the highest possible employee and client satisfaction, value creation and profitable business growth.
Fritjof has worked in the IT service industry for 25+ years in a variety of senior executive positions as managing director, Senior Vice President or director in CSC Nordic. In the period he has among other things been instrumental in delivering quality, large system integration projects and outsourcing services to public sector and healthcare clients.
Prior to this he worked as a scientist in the Danish Ministry of Agriculture, the Plant Protection Centre specialized in Integrated Pesticide Management in the agriculture industry. Throughout his career he has served as a member of public sector committees, non-profit and commercial company board of directors.
Fritjof holds Master’s degrees from Copenhagen University.
Close
Advisors
Our Advisors form a group of very experienced professionals with successful entrepreneurial and operational backgrounds. Their networks cover all regions of the world, and their competence base goes deeply into communications & software, as well as business development and expansion strategies.
The VIA Advisors may act as ad-hoc advisors to VIA equity when specific investments are investigated or when a change of direction for a given portfolio company is being considered. Whenever there is a mutual interest and fit, VIA may consider recommending an Advisor as member of the Board of Directors to a portfolio company.
Jan has worked in the IT industry for about 20 years, and his main interests are the commercial and the technical side of running a profitable business.
Currently he works as CEO for UVdata A/S, a leading Danish company developing software for the educational area in Denmark. Jan co-founded UVdata back in 2004, and partly sold the company to VIA in 2013. Together VIA, Jan and a number of employee investors grew the company significantly and exited the company in 2017 to the then private equity owned KMD A/S.
Currently he is Vice President for a number of business units within the KMD group (the labour market, the unemployment and union area, and the children and education area). KMD is the largest Danish IT supplier with more than 3,000 employees and a turnover of DKK 5 billion. While working for KMD, digital transformation, organizational development, business development and platform migrations have been key aspects of the job.
He is on the board of directors in several companies, including Continia A/S, NOBIS A/S, C&B A/S and Spritten A/S. Additional Jan has invested in VIA Equity Fond IV.
Jan holds a MA in German, IT and organization from University of Aalborg, Aarhus and Bonn. Additionally, he earned an MBA in 2013.
Close
Kim currently works as executive advisor, holds the chairman position in FL Group and has former board and chairmann member positions on a number of Danish and international companies, e.g. Pisiffik Greenland A/S, Frontmatec A/S, Danish Crown, HTC Inc, Sunrise AG and several others.
Kim is the former CEO at Verdo, a producer and distributor of electricity, water and heat, which also have products within tele, energy trading, Power plants and internet, with 600 employees and a turnover of DKK 3 billion.
Previously CEO and President of Danish telecom incumbent TDC Solutions A/S with 12,000 employees and DKK 22 billion in turnover, and member of the executive board of TDC A/S.
Prior to TDC, Kim was CEO and President for 6 years for Sunrise AG, the second biggest Telecom operator in Switzerland, with 2500 employees and a turnover of DKK 10 billion. Kim also spent 2 years in Germany as CEO and President of Talkline AG, one of the leading German mobile service operators, with 1800 employees and a turnover of DKK 9 billion. Before these positions Kim held several leading positions in the Telco business, and has been participating in start-up companies as well.
Kim holds an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Aarhus and a Business MBA from Insead.
Close
Doug is CEO of Heyou, the digital media company founded by actor-writer-director Tom Skerritt. Heyou’s mission is to provide the world with engaging and creative story-telling.
He was a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii. UH is home to the Academy for Creative Media, headed by Chris Lee, former President of TriStar/Columbia.
In addition, Doug is the Founding Co-Editor-in-Chief (now Emeritus) of Telehealth and Medicine Today and Blockchain in Healthcare Today. In healthcare delivery, digital visualization is a vital technology.
He is on the Board of Directors of Creative Intelligence Associates (Tokyo). CIA is a brand strategy advisor that assists clients with major transformation initiative. The founder of Fast Retailing (Uniqlo)—currently Japan’s richest person—has written extensively about the role CIA played in building his company’s brand and corporate strategy.
Doug served as President, Japan/Asia Pacific for leading technology companies. He served as the only non-Japanese member of the board of directors of Deloitte Tohmatsu Japan, where he was on their consulting division’s executive committee. He was also on the international board of Mphasis—a spinout of Citibank Technologies that started with 60 people and now has over 20,000 workers.
Earlier, Doug worked in Japan as a strategy consultant focused on information and communications technology for the Boston Consulting Group and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate Business School of Sophia University in Tokyo.
Doug received his BA and MBA from the University of Southern California and also holds a JD from the Stanford Law School.
Close
President, Insight Strategies At Insight Strategies.
Paul helps companies examine and often redefine their perspectives on the business they are in (in the process at times also redefining who their customer is), develop corporate strategy, identify sustainable competitive differentiators, redefine and analyze market segmentation, go-to-market strategies, branding and pricing, assist with strategy implementation and develop unit economics analysis.
Paul is also sought after as a top-rated Executive Coach in Harvard Business School’s Executive Education program. Paul coaches global top executives on both management techniques and leadership development – in particular, how to turn a hyper-diverse group of individuals into a high performing team using experiential exercises and tasks.
Earlier as Executive Vice President of PlumChoice, Paul revamped the company’s strategy to expand its Technology Services Solutions leadership role. He led the go-to-market strategy for the company including market assessment, business definition, market segmentation and coverage strategies, business model optimization, technology development, product management, strategic pricing and corporate messaging.
Before joining PlumChoice, Paul was the Executive Vice President of LoJack Corporation, where he was instrumental in a 2010 restructuring that returned the company to profitability and growth. Prior to that, Paul held multiple senior executive roles that included Strategy, Engineering, IT, Marketing and Sales Operations at One Communications, a private equity-financed roll up between 2004 and 2008, and served as CEO of OpenReach, a venture-backed managed services software company from 2001 to 2003. He also spent 15 years at MCI Communications in a variety of executive roles in Operations, Commercial Sales and Service, National Accounts, Data Marketing and Business Development.
Paul holds Bachelors’ degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Close
VIA equity a/s’ board of directors
The board of directors in the management company, VIA equity a/s, has the normal fiduciary obligations and responsibilities in accordance with Danish and European Union regulation including, but not limited to, the Danish Companies Act (Selskabsloven) as well as the guidelines and executive orders issued by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority. In addition, the board of directors has fiduciary obligations and responsibilities in relation to the management company stakeholders and society at large.
The board of directors has no influence on investment decisions as the decisions are ultimately taken by the relevant Independent Investment Committees for each managed fund based on the recommendations from the VIA equity team. (Please refer to the description of Independent Investment Committee).
Louise has more than 10 years of experience in all aspects of complex M&A transactions and strategic development in changing markets and compliance structures.
Louise is Senior Director – Strategic Ownerships, Lundbeckfonden / Lundbeck Foundation (from June 2024), and has earlier worked in Strategic Transformation & Group M&A in ISS World Services A/S (From June 2019 to June 2024) and Corporate Finance in Danske Bank (from May 2011 to May 2019).
Louise holds a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Copenhagen.
Close
For more than two decades Lars has been a central and acknowledged person in the Danish and international financial and investment markets.
Lars stopped in 2023 as Chairman of the Board of Governors, Denmark’s National Bank. A position he held from 2013 to 31st January 2023. Lars was earlier CEO at ATP (from 1998 to 2013).
Lars holds a Cand. Oecon degree from Aarhus University.
Close
John is chairman of the board of directors and is a partner at VIA equity a/s.
Close
