Two Swedish Digital Signage Companies Shuffle CEOs

April 1, 2019 by Dave Haynes

This may be indicative of nothing, but a couple of the largest digital signage companies in Scandinavia are getting new CEOs.

Sweden’s ZetaDisplay has announced its President and CEO, Leif Liljebrunn (pictured above), will take on a new role on VP Mergers and Acquisitions this fall, once a CEO search and the new person is in place.

Martin Romanowski recently sent around an email to contacts saying he’s left Smartsign, also of Sweden, saying he’d left and was going for “new challenges.” He’d been there 4 1/2 years, and Maria Dahlstrom is now listed as CEO, though the company says she is acting CEO.

Liljebrunn has been ZetaDisplay’s CEO since 2009, building up both revenue and footprint, in part through a series of acquisitions that was/is rolling up that northern Europe market.

During this time, the company has developed into a European leader in Digital Signage. During Leif’s time, the company has expanded 10 times with a sale in 2018 just over SEK 400 million, with an EBITDA result of SEK 48 million. Under Leif’s management, ZetaDisplay has reached several milestones including that the company is positioned as a software company with recurring revenues, a successful acquisition strategy with its own offices in six countries and that the company moved from Nasdaq First North in 2017 to Nasdaq Stockholm’s main list.

Since Leif wants to take a different role in the company in the future, he and the Board have decided to focus on ZetaDisplay’s continued acquisition strategy. Recruitment of a new CEO will be led by Alumni.

“I’ve been thinking about this for some time and next year I will fill 60. I feel that the company is now in a position where I can hand over to a new CEO while I can focus on ZetaDisplays continued acquisition strategy, with the experience and the network of contacts that I have in Europe,” says Liljebrunn.