Sweden’s technology sector has produced global SaaS platforms, consumer apps used by hundreds of millions, and fast-growing energy and health tech companies, and each one depends on security that can keep pace with growth. The seven cybersecurity leaders below protect some of the country’s most ambitious tech businesses, and several were the first security hire at their companies. Their backgrounds are anything but uniform. One worked five years as a security guard, including undercover loss prevention, before becoming a group CISO. Another served as an economic and political analyst at the Swedish Embassy in Pretoria. A third was the first employee at an IT services company founded just before the dot-com collapse, and the youngest led his company through a SOC 2 Type II attestation at 24.
Conny Richardson – CISO, Funnel
Conny Richardson spent more than a decade at Stockholm University as a systems engineer and systems manager, working with federated identity, intrusion detection, and IT operations. He moved into security engineering for electronic trading at Neonet Securities and payment systems at Point Transaction Systems, then spent nearly six years at ICA, leading security operations and later managing the IT security function and team. At Zettle by PayPal he led information security across payments, privacy, and DevSecOps before becoming CISO in 2019. Richardson has served as CISO of Funnel since October 2020, leading security governance, risk management, and cloud security, and focusing on controls automation, security as code, and compliance as code to support ISO 27001 and SOC 2. He has spent the last ten of his 15-plus years in cybersecurity as a CISO for high-growth SaaS and fintech companies.
Baris Färnman – CISO, Truecaller
Baris Färnman worked as a management consultant and served as an economic and political analyst at the Swedish Embassy in Pretoria before joining PwC Sweden in 2016. Over six years he rose to build and run its digital trust and cybersecurity business for the financial sector, leading operational due diligence on private equity portfolio companies and taking interim CISO and CIO mandates. After leading a workstream in Swedbank’s group regulatory remediation programme, he joined Truecaller in 2022 and built its information security function from a clean sheet. In 2024 he led the company to ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and ISO 9001 certification through a single integrated program. Since May 2025 he has led IT and information security together for the Nasdaq Stockholm-listed company, whose app reaches more than 500 million people a month, running its AI governance program against the EU AI Act, GDPR, and India’s DPDP with a team across Stockholm and Bangalore. Färnman also leads Företagsuniversitetet’s IT-Security Directors diploma program and holds an MSc from Stockholm University and a BSc in crisis management from the Swedish Defence University.
Daniel Clintebladh – Group CIO & CISO, Confirma Software
Daniel Clintebladh started in IT support at TeleComputing, advancing from first to third line. As a consultant IT director for five years, he helped more than 50 companies plan and deliver over 60 IT projects, then led technical operations and a team of more than 40 at NetNordic. He moved to Singapore as CTO of Sponsee, managing more than 60 developers across Web3, fintech, and gaming, and returned to Stockholm as CIO of EV charging company Charge Amps, overseeing global IT, security, and compliance across nine countries. Clintebladh joined Confirma Software as Group CISO in April 2025 and became Group CIO and CISO that December, leading technology, cybersecurity, and infrastructure across a PE-backed group of 30 SaaS companies and more than 700 people that acquires five to six companies a year. His view is that being secure is what makes a company compliant, not the other way around.
Arvid Berndtsson – Head of Information Security, Vertiseit Group
Arvid Berndtsson started programming as a child by modifying an online LEGO game so his car would go faster. He built websites through a student company, developed a dosimeter tracking system during a summer job at Vattenfall, and joined Vertiseit as a software developer in 2021, serving as acting cloud operations lead in 2023. Along the way he co-founded a startup measuring the carbon footprint of web services, founded LimeTip, an API handling more than 1,000 VAT validation requests a day, and taught programming and secure coding at Malmö University. Berndtsson became head of information security at Vertiseit Group in May 2025 and, at 24, led the group through its first SOC 2 Type II attestation across three brands and more than 300 employees, with no exceptions noted. He leads security strategy, ISO 27001 alignment, and AI governance, and achieved full security training completion across the group within two weeks.
Jon Westholm – CISO, Tibber
Jon Westholm was the first employee at SizeIT Drift, a managed IT services company founded just before 9/11 and the dot-com collapse, where he ran everything from data centers to end-user support. He spent 14 years at Cint, building its IT function as the company grew from a single Stockholm office to nearly 350 users across Stockholm, Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. As VP of information security, he worked on Cint’s GDPR readiness and Nasdaq Stockholm IPO and led IT integration for its acquisition of Lucid; the final day of that integration was his first day at Tibber. He joined the energy tech company in 2022 as its first security and IT hire, built the function from scratch on Okta and Vanta, scaled it to more than 300 users in a single year, and supported its Series C raise. Westholm became CISO in April 2024, leading GDPR, NIS2, and ISO 27001 compliance and EU AI Act readiness, and represents Tibber in Nordic Pine, a NATO exercise on hybrid threats to renewable energy systems.
Sabit Sawut – Group CISO, Kry
Sabit Sawut spent five years as a security guard, protecting hospitals, terminals, and public venues and conducting undercover loss prevention in major malls. He moved into IT as a second-line support technician at PA Consulting, then handled nighttime cybersecurity incidents across Scandinavia as an incident responder at PostNord. After working as an information security specialist at Zacco, he joined Secify as an external CISO for five public and private sector organizations, leading a 3,500-employee company to first-time ISO 27001:2022 certification in eight months. Sawut became Group CISO of Kry in March 2026, leading information and physical security, NIS2 compliance, supplier security, and AI governance across the European healthcare group and serving as security lead on acquisitions. His guiding view is that security has to work for the business, or it won’t be followed.
Victor Pettersson – CISO, Sokigo
Victor Pettersson started as an intern and support technician at GlobalConnect in Stockholm. He moved into security operations at Orange Cyberdefense, working as a SIEM specialist and then as technical lead for Microsoft Sentinel. Pettersson joined Sokigo in 2023 as information security officer and became CISO in August 2024, with a focus on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. He was named one of ESM’s Top 10 CISOs of 2026.
Built for Growth
What stands out about these seven leaders is how many built security functions from the ground up. Färnman, Westholm, and Clintebladh each created security programs at fast-growing companies, while Richardson and Berndtsson turned automation and engineering skills into scalable compliance. Sawut and Pettersson rose from frontline roles in physical security, support, and security operations to lead security programs of their own. As Swedish tech companies continue to scale across borders, these leaders make sure security grows with them.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.