Investor Relations

Bengt Arve Rem is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Kistefos, the majority shareholder of Advanzia Bank S.A., and Chairman of the Board of Advanzia.

Prior to joining Kistefos in 2015, Bengt Rem was CEO of Arctic Partners. His previous experience includes the positions of Executive Vice President and Financial Director, along with other senior positions at the investment company Aker ASA. He was also Head of the Department of Financial Instruments at the Oslo Stock Exchange and worked as a state authorised accountant at Arthur Andersen & Co.

Mr. Rem holds a Master of Science in Business Administration and Finance degree from the Norwegian Business School (BI) and is a state authorised public accountant from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH).

Eirik Holtedahl was one of the co-founders of Advanzia Bank and held the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Deputy CEO between 2005 and 2016. He rejoined Advanzia Bank as member of the Board of Directors in April 2023.

Mr. Holtedahl is Chief Financial Officer and Deputy CEO of consumer finance bank Komplett Bank in Norway. He has more than twenty years of experience in consumer finance, credit cards and financial services. Previous positions include co-founder of and Vice President of Treasury at Bankia Bank ASA and Deputy Director General at the Norwegian Ministry of Finance.

Mr. Holtedahl holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Economics and Accountancy from Concordia University (Canada) and attended Master studies in Economics at the University of Oslo (Norway).

Nishant Fafalia is Investment Director at Kistefos, member of the Board of Directors at Advanzia Bank S.A., Interim CEO of Advanzia and Chairperson of the Advanzia Audit, Risk & Compliance Committee. 

Mr. Fafalia joined Kistefos in 2010. In addition to being a member of the Advanzia board, Mr. Fafalia represents Kistefos on the boards of Semine AS and Ostomycure AS. Prior to joining Kistefos, Mr. Fafalia worked as a Project Manager at Orkla Brands, a leading Norwegian FMCG company. 

Mr. Fafalia holds a Master of Science degree from Lund Institute of Technology and a Master of Science degree from Lund University School of Economics & Management

T​or Erland Fyksen was one of the co-founders of Advanzia Bank S.A. in 2005 and has been a member of the Board ever since. Mr. Fyksen is an expert in risk management and internal control functions and was instrumental in setting up Advanzia’s outsourcing, ICT, fraud prevention, customer support and claims and collection management functions.
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Mr. Fyksen has several years of experience in managing large international procurement projects in the offshore engineering industry and utilities sector. He also worked as a management consultant, conducting change management projects and implementing financial control systems and project management training programmes for private and public organisations.

Mr. Fyksen holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from Haas School of Business, Berkeley, University of California​.

Wiljar Nesse is Chief Executive Officer at DigiPlex and joined the Board of Directors of
Advanzia Bank S.A. in January 2021​.

In addition to being a member of the Advanzia board, Wiljar Nesse was a board member of the trade and employer’s association Abelia and a selected member of The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) panel for future business and industry in Norway.

Prior to his role at DigiPlex, he worked for InfoStream and Manamind AS, and spent 15 years at EVRY, where he developed the company’s financial services business area into a global role.
Wiljar Nesse brings a wealth of experience in IT services and software for the financial services industry.

Wiljar Nesse holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, and studied mathematics and natural sciences at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany).