Tomas Vallenvik

Tomas Vallenvik · Chief Data Officer · Europe

My responsibility grew as the figures travelled further from their source.

Chief Data Officer

Vardelune Power

Sector
Wind, hydro and gas generation
Ownership
Private group; infrastructure fund 64%, founders 36%
Company scale
EUR 2.6 billion company revenue in 2025
Employees
2800 company employees at October 2026
Geography
Stockholm headquarters; Sweden, Finland and Denmark; 4.6 GW gross operated nameplate capacity
Reporting to
Chief Executive Officer
Team
98 data colleagues through six direct reports at October 2026
Financial scope
EUR 15.4 million delegated 2026 function expense; operations, trading, settlement and plant investment separately led

Mandate

Keep the physical and analytical bases of power information visible as it reaches leadership decisions.

Outcomes

  • Preserved the 2023 gross, station-service and net-generation account through EUR 2.1 million reconciliation work.
  • Kept four missing intervals explicit in the ninety-six-interval 2021 observation pilot.
  • Separated eighteen-hour forecasts from thirty-minute updates in the 2025 review.

Decisions in context

This appointment connects several kinds of evidence without making them identical. A generation boundary, an interval-quality flag and a forecast lead time each change what the resulting measure can mean. I lead the data team that preserves those conditions, while plant operations, dispatch, trading, settlement and professional owners retain their decisions. Executive board presentations began in April 2020; there is no statutory seat in the fictional record. The current company revenue, capacity and workforce belong to the institution, separately from my delegated expense and team. I want the function to make a concise account easier to question, rather than rely on the authority of a large output figure. That means accepting when a useful result needs a second view or a visible qualification, even if the presentation becomes less convenient than a single headline.

Reason for the move

Appointed CDO as the data remit expanded across generation and portfolio information; current role.

Director of energy information

Vardelune Power

Sector
Energy portfolio and generation information
Ownership
Private generation group
Company scale
EUR 1.8 billion company revenue in 2019
Employees
2200 company employees in 2019
Geography
Sweden, Finland and Denmark; 3.2 GW gross operated nameplate capacity in 2019
Reporting to
Executive responsible for information and business support
Team
54 information colleagues through five direct reports in 2019
Financial scope
EUR 7.6 million annual function expense in 2019; financial consolidation and commercial rights separately determined

Mandate

Maintain clear relationships between physical assets and the portfolio measures used to describe them.

Outcomes

  • Retained the 240 MW gross operated basis of the 2016 wind asset beside its 144 MW ownership-weighted indicator.
  • Made the 60% ownership calculation explicit without presenting it as generated energy.
  • Completed EUR 1.8 million portfolio-data work while leaving accounting and rights interpretation with their owners.

Decisions in context

The portfolio remit showed me how the same asset could appear in several valid accounts whose definitions were easily lost. Operating the whole facility and owning a share of it were different facts, even when a presentation wanted one capacity number. I wanted our data to preserve both questions instead of resolving their difference through whichever total looked more useful in the meeting. That required working with finance and legal colleagues without claiming their conclusions as part of my own data authority. The director title described my executive employment, not a statutory appointment. This period broadened my attention from how a measurement was obtained to how it was represented across organisational boundaries. It prepared me to lead a wider function while remaining explicit about the decisions that a well-defined dataset could inform but could not make by itself.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CDO after extending responsibility from generation records into wider institutional data.

Head of generation data

Vardelune Power

Sector
Generation measurement and reporting
Ownership
Private generation business
Company scale
EUR 920 million company revenue in 2012
Employees
1400 company employees in 2012
Geography
Sweden and Finland; 1.8 GW gross operated nameplate capacity in 2012
Reporting to
Director responsible for operational information
Team
27 generation-data colleagues through four direct reports in 2012
Financial scope
EUR 2.8 million annual function expense in 2012; no plant-dispatch or trading authority

Mandate

Maintain recurring generation information whose derived quantities remain connected to source observations.

Outcomes

  • Accepted responsibility for the 2008 negative increment calculated without the documented register wrap.
  • Corrected the interval to 40 kWh using evidence of one 1000 kWh rollover.
  • Retained readings, event history and derived increment through EUR 420000 review work.

Decisions in context

Joining a generator made me responsible for definitions as they were reused in recurring reports. The auxiliary-register error exposed a weakness in my own review: I accepted a straightforward calculation without asking whether the instrument history supported it. Mats Hellerby’s check made the missing event visible and changed the derived result. The correction was specific to a documented interval, so I wanted the evidence retained rather than converted into a general instruction to adjust every negative reading. I did not operate the plant or control trading activity. My contribution was the reliability and explanation of information supplied to those owners. The experience made me more attentive to the distinction between accurately copying observations and correctly interpreting the physical process they describe. A report can satisfy the first condition and still fail the second.

Reason for the move

Advanced to energy-information leadership as the remit widened into portfolio definitions.

Engagement Lead

Solvrenik Analytics

Sector
Applied quantitative analysis
Ownership
Private analytical advisory firm
Company scale
EUR 24 million company fee revenue in 2005
Employees
125 company employees in 2005
Geography
Northern Europe; research delivered from Stockholm
Reporting to
Director of analytical delivery
Team
16 assignment colleagues through three direct reports in 2005
Financial scope
EUR 680000 annual delivery expense in 2005; client operating and investment decisions retained by clients

Mandate

Lead assignments that explain why quantities can or cannot be compared on the proposed basis.

Outcomes

  • Kept measurement definitions attached to findings delivered for management use.
  • Examined whether a reported difference reflected process change or a change in observation basis.
  • Sought a generation role to remain responsible for definitions through continuing operational use.

Decisions in context

Leading analytical work meant making the result intelligible to a client who would not inspect every source definition. I wanted the explanation to retain the basis of comparison without burying the decision in technical detail. The difficult part was often reuse: a result prepared for one purpose could be carried into another discussion after its qualification had been shortened. My expense delegation supported assignment delivery, while clients retained their own operating choices. I became increasingly interested in the continuing responsibility for that meaning once the original project team had moved on. The role at Vardelune offered a way to take that responsibility inside an energy institution. It would require me to maintain the account, respond to challenges and live with the consequences of my own reporting interpretations instead of treating delivery as the end of the work.

Reason for the move

Joined Vardelune to follow measurement information beyond an advisory assignment into recurring use.

Applied Analyst

Solvrenik Analytics

Sector
Applied mathematical and statistical research
Ownership
Private analytical company
Company scale
EUR 6.8 million company fee revenue in 1998
Employees
42 company employees in 1998
Geography
Sweden; analytical work based in Stockholm
Reporting to
Engagement lead
Team
Individual contributor in a seven-person analytical group
Financial scope
No independent expense delegation or people-management responsibility

Mandate

Understand source quantities and observation conditions before interpreting a reported change.

Outcomes

  • Examined the unit and observation interval underlying analytical extracts.
  • Separated changes in a process from changes in the basis used to report it.
  • Developed an interest in maintaining meaning when quantitative evidence reaches management.

Decisions in context

I joined after completing applied mathematics in June 1992. The early work taught me that a comparison depends on more than finding two columns with similar labels. I needed to understand how each quantity was observed and which question it could answer. I worked within a seven-person group under an engagement lead, with no independent management or spending authority. The later scale of a generation portfolio does not belong to this appointment. What began here was a habit of tracing the result back to its source definition and asking whether the intended interpretation survived that examination. The habit was useful but imperfect, as my later register mistake demonstrates. I include both in the career because an early intellectual interest is not evidence that every subsequent decision followed it correctly or that learning ended with the first promotion.

Reason for the move

Promoted to engagement leadership after gaining research and client-explanation experience.

What I am looking for next

I would like to contribute where an energy institution needs to understand why apparently similar measures describe different things. A board may need a clearer account of generation boundaries, portfolio ownership or the purpose of a forecast comparison before deciding how much confidence to place in the conclusion. I could help frame those questions from experience while learning the wider responsibilities of the intended role. The contribution would complement operational and professional expertise rather than replace it.

For a first statutory appointment I would need employer agreement, induction and a careful review of relationships with generators, suppliers, analytical firms and commercial counterparties. Twenty-four days annually would be an initial indication, subject to the actual workload and any exceptional demands. I hold no statutory seat in this invented record. A real next chapter would require verified evidence and permission to discuss it, along with enough openness to recognise that a familiar measurement problem may have a different significance in another institution’s circumstances. I would want the appointment to be assessed on that bounded contribution rather than the scale of the company described on my homepage.