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).

Dr. Thomas Schlieper has been a member of the Board of Advanzia Bank S.A. since the foundation of the company and is currently Deputy Chairman.

Dr. Schlieper has around 20 years of experience as an independent strategy consultant in the banking and investment sector. He was a member of the executive board at the UBS Group/Cantrade Privatbank AG in Zurich, Switzerland. Previously, Dr. Schlieper held senior positions at Deutsche Bank, where he was instrumental in founding the bank’s Swiss branch.

Dr. Schlieper is a magna cum laude graduate from the Universities of Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) and Bern (Switzerland), where he specialised in law, economics and business administration.

Tor 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.

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 programs for private and public organisations.

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

Tom Ruud is a member of the Board of Advanzia Bank S.A. and Kistefos AS. Ruud joined Kistefos in 2010 and was Managing Director of the company from 2013 to 2015.

Before his tenure at Kistefos, Mr. Ruud was a member of the Group Executive Management of the Umoe Group. Prior to that, he was part of the Group Executive Management of Nordea bank AB in Stockholm, and before that, he was the Group President and CEO of Kreditkassen and Group President and CEO of Aker Norcem.

Over the last 30 years, Mr. Ruud has served as Chairman or Board member in a large number of listed and private companies and organisations both in Norway and internationally.

Tom Ruud has a degree in Civil Engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and has also completed an executive programme at Wharton University in Pennsylvania (USA).

Nishant Fafalia is Investment Manager at Kistefos, member of the Board of Directors at Advanzia Bank S.A., and Chairman of the Advanzia Audit 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 Atex Group Ltd., Promon AS, Ostomycure AS, Bambuser AB and Line2 Inc. 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 and the National University of Singapore.