The board of directors of Catena Media has appointed chair Göran Blomberg as interim chief executive of the company, as previous CEO Per Hellberg left the position today.
The search for a new permanent CEO will now begin, with Blomberg temporarily stepping down from his position as chairman of the board in order to fulfil the role.
It comes as Hellberg, who has led the business since March 2018, departs, with no reason given for his departure.
Board member Öystein Engebretsen will serve as acting chairman during Blomberg’s tenure as chief executive.
Blomberg has been a member of Catena’s board of directors since May 2019 and served as chairman since May 2020. He brings over 30 years’ experience, principally as chief financial officer of publicly listed companies, most recently at ICA handlarnas Förbund (ICA Retailers’ Association). He has also served on the board of directors of several public and private corporations.
Interim chairman Engebretsen has been a member of Catena’s board since October 2018. He is investment manager at Investment AB Öresund and board member of INSR Insurance Group ASA and Scandi Standard AB.
“We are pleased to appoint Göran Blomberg as the new interim CEO of Catena Media,” said Engebretsen.
“Mr. Blomberg has solid experience and brings more than 30 years of managerial experience to the role in public listed environment. This makes him a good fit with Catena Media for the transition period. The board also want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Hellberg for his time with Catena Media.”
Blomberg added that: “Subsequently to strengthening the company’s financial position through a successfully executed rights issue of a hybrid bond in June we now will refocus on organic growth and potential strategic acquisitions.”
“Additionally, we will improve operational efficiency through an enhanced focus on BI and AI to create an even more scalable business solution. McKinsey & Company has just been engaged to further accelerate this transformation process.”
Having scaled rapidly through an acquisition-driven strategy between 2016 and 2018, the company said it is now going through a consolidation phase to integrate recently acquired assets.
Alongside its asset consolidation, it has successfully entered the US and Japanese markets, and developed its profitable AskGamblers product within the European market, it added.
Results published in November showed that Catena had felt the impact of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, as it reported a 5.7% decline in overall year-on-year revenue for the third quarter.
The company reported declines across all of its core business areas, with search revenue down 2.6%, while paid and subscription revenue each fell by over 20%.
