About

Christina Källenfors is the group general counsel of Com Hem Holding – Sweden’s largest cable company and a leading supplier of television and high-speed broadband – and explains her significant impact on the internal legal department of the company as follows: ‘I have transformed the legal department’s role from a passive back-office [function] that did not prioritise in relation to business value, to a legal department that is up to date with business strategy in order to pro actively advise and focus on prioritised matters’. Introducing processes such as agreement reviews and ensuring the team is present during the early stages of projects, Källenfors has led the team’s repositioning that now sees it be ‘very much in the centre of the business’. It is clear that her initiatives have been successful, and she explains that the team ‘now sits door to door to the CEO and CFO’ illustrating the close proximity and trust it is held in by senior businesspeople. When describing the proudest moments of her in-house career, Källenfors cites making Com Hem compliant with the A-listing on Nasdaq from being a private equity-owned company. This involved all ‘policies, governance principles and processes [that] had to be put in place’ at the same time as juggling the oversight of Com Hem’s acquisition of one of its main competitors on the Swedish TV market in Boxer, a complex acquisition that displays Källenfors ability to juggle challenging business issues simultaneously. Before joining Com Hem in 2014 Källenfors held the role of vice president and senior legal counsel for Swedish timber, pulp and paper manufacturer SCA. Of this she notes the ‘truly international’ nature of the deal, as well as the fact it ‘was ongoing for more than a year’ and the way that final negotiations involved coordination of over 100 lawyers entailing her travelling ‘back and forth to London for several months’. She states this gave her ‘evidence and comfort that I truly could project lead and be responsible for a huge transaction’. Utilising this experience, she also notes the way she will be relied upon to deliver the ongoing planned merger between Tele 2 and Com Hem, a legally complex transaction that also stands as one of the ‘largest Swedish M&A public transactions’ ever undertaken. As part of Com Hem’s senior management team Källenfors has established herself as a ‘truly trusted advisor’ working ‘very closely’ with the CEO and CFO, and is entrusted with high-level corporate matters alongside the most senior people within he business. Her ability to deal with these issues has been noticed by her peers, and she has been praised for her calm, competent, effective and easy to understand advice in both commercial and regulatory senses. When asked to prove advice to in-house legal colleagues, Källenfors stresses the importance to ‘understand the business and become a trusted advisor – especially to the CEO – he/she should always know that you are on top of things and can rely on you [as] you mitigate the risks – not only the legal ones’, as well as ‘secure stable corporate governa