Thirty-seven years following the obligation beyond the next internal handover.

Mandate

Connect commercial service commitments with the delivery evidence and dependencies that make them supportable.

Outcomes

• Replaced the universal thirty-day activation message after the 2023 sixty-order review.
• Supported a reason-specific review of 126 revisits across 900 field jobs in 2021.
• Retained the qualified physical-entry finding and SEK 3.6 million response in the 2025 six-site continuity account.

Decisions in context

The COO appointment made me responsible for the connection between the service proposition and the wider operating organisation. I could no longer treat a difficult handover as an issue confined to one delivery programme. The universal-date review required a commercial change, the revisit review required a more meaningful basis for partner accountability, and the continuity case required a physical qualification to remain in the customer account. Each involved colleagues whose authority I could not replace through an executive summary. I lead 690 people within the company’s 1020-person workforce, and my expense delegation does not include unrestricted capital or financing authority. The current service count also describes active services, not unique customers. I keep these limits explicit so that the account of this appointment is useful to someone assessing my actual responsibility rather than the broad impression created by its title.

Reason for the move

Appointed COO after seven years leading customer operations; current role.

Mandate

Keep installation, configuration and accepted customer handover connected across the service organisation.

Outcomes

• Retained the 2016 twenty-four-site programme as a customer obligation beyond installation progress.
• Separated seventeen accepted handovers, four installed sites awaiting further work and three installations pending.
• Supported SEK 1.7 million temporary parallel service and support with its consequence disclosed.

Decisions in context

This appointment brought customer operations and the delivery organisation into a more sustained relationship. A field measure could describe substantial progress without explaining what the customer could yet rely on. The twenty-four-site programme made that distinction concrete: closing the installation account would not have settled the remaining configuration and acceptance work. I wanted a report that recognised the team’s achievement while retaining the full undertaking. I also learned to keep commercial treatment separate from an internal status label, with the relevant agreements and authorised decisions governing the response. Customer Operations Director was a functional employment title, not evidence of a statutory seat. The role developed my ability to connect several valid accounts of the same programme without allowing the most convenient one to end the discussion prematurely or absorb the responsibilities of another function.

Reason for the move

Promoted to COO as the provider’s operating remit expanded.

Mandate

Coordinate the work required to turn a business-service order into a supportable customer handover.

Outcomes

• Took responsibility for the 2009 routing proposal that inadequately represented thirteen ferry-dependent visits.
• Disclosed SEK 1.1 million additional travel, cover and rescheduling expense.
• Brought local journey constraints into the planning account rather than leaving them as explanations after a difficult visit.

Decisions in context

The move into a connectivity provider changed how I understood completion. Rovalen’s assignment could end while the provider’s relationship with the customer continued. I now needed to understand the service undertaking beyond the field visit and to organise the people who would carry it through. My island-routing error was part of that learning. I had supported a central plan on a distance comparison that did not adequately describe the ferry dependency of thirteen visits. Correcting it required expense and an acknowledgement that local evidence had been available earlier. I did not take the lesson to mean that all central coordination was misguided. I took it to mean that the operating comparison needed to represent the actual journey before I used it to recommend a wider commitment or judge the field team’s execution.

Reason for the move

Promoted into customer operations with a wider service remit.

Mandate

Coordinate qualified field work and supplier attendance against the actual requirements of service assignments.

Outcomes

• Connected proposed visit dates with the dependencies reported by field and customer contacts.
• Kept service-company responsibility separate from customer asset ownership and network decisions.
• Improved the clarity of the next action owed when an assignment could not proceed on the original expectation.

Decisions in context

The regional role gave me direct responsibility for organising field delivery across a larger group. I had to understand the work well enough to connect an assignment date with the people, material and external conditions it required. A problem at the premises could be described as somebody else’s dependency, but that description alone did not give the customer a useful answer. I learned to identify the responsible next decision and explain what our service organisation could and could not commit to. Rovalen’s revenue was service revenue, not the value of the networks on which colleagues worked. My expense account covered delivery and did not confer authority over a customer’s capital programme. The appointment prepared me for a provider role by making the limits of a single field assignment more visible, including the service questions that continued after it closed.

Reason for the move

Joined the connectivity provider to take responsibility for the continuing business-service undertaking.

Mandate

Maintain assignment records and connect customer requests with the responsible field or service colleague.

Outcomes

• Learned to preserve the next action behind an internal status.
• Recognised when a record’s closure did not answer the customer’s continuing question.
• Developed a practical distinction between reporting an assignment and owning the authority to change it.

Decisions in context

I joined after completing business administration in June 1989. The starting role was supervised and modest: requests, assignment records and follow-up within a ten-person team. I did not direct a network or set the commercial terms of a service. I learned instead how easily a customer’s question could become separated from the internal record used to manage it. A status that made sense to the desk might not tell the field colleague what to do next or tell the customer what to expect. Keeping those connections visible was useful work even without a senior title. This early appointment belongs in the record because it explains the habit behind my later interest in service commitments. It should not be inflated through company scale or responsibilities that I only acquired much later in the career.

Reason for the move

Promoted to regional installation management after nearly seven years in service coordination.