Cristina Stenbeck controls Millicom, the partner company of Tigo-Une, in which EPM has half of the shares that the Mayor is desperate to sell
At the age of 24, the Swedish Cristina Stenbeck was already pulling the strings at Millicom, part of the Kinnevik group, created by her father Jan Hugo Stenbek, who died of a heart attack at the age of only 59 in 2002. A visionary, she quickly entered the online world at big, leaving the Swedish borders to rub shoulders with rulers and discuss regulation policies as he did with Juan Manuel Santos in 2012. Two years later he had finalized the merger of Tigo and Une in a country that he has approached on behalf of his friendship with Alejandro Santo Domingo, with whom he shares a social and business life on the international jet set, together they put the radar on opportunities in emerging markets and make joint investments. Juan Antonio Pungilippu, founding partner of Teka Capital, where the Santo Domingo group has a stake, is a member of the board of directors of TigoUne.
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Kinnevik was born in 1936 under the motto we build digital businesses, as a Swedish investment company founded by three families, one of them headed by grandfather Hugo Stenbeck. Cristina’s father, Jan Hugo Stenbek, invested heavily in satellite systems for television distribution and mobile telephony, founding Millicom International Cellular in 1990. He did not hesitate to see a stage in the United States and set up a second residence in Long Island, New York. , where Cristina, the first-born, was born and studied until she graduated in administration at Georgetown in Washington.
Almost presciently, from the age of 19, he brought her to the board of directors, as if he were preparing her for a premature replacement in a company with more than 80,000 employees (today it has 95,000). She took over the reins of the group in 2003, surrounding herself with experienced people and after four years she became CEO with the support of her brother Max, eight years her junior. Substantial changes are owed to her, such as the simplification of the structure, consolidation of ownership, and having increased Kinnevik’s participation in internet businesses and particularly in e-commerce companies. Under her leadership, an investment path was traced in emerging markets, in Latin America through Millicom it has a presence in eight countries, Colombia being the only one where its market share is not higher than 40%. She landed in the country in 2006 to operate Colombia Móvil, under the Tigo brand, in partnership with UNE, shares that she would contribute to the merger in August 2014.
The risk was high because it was a partnership with a public company such as EPM, which kept 50% +1 share of Tigo-UNE. Control was gained by agreeing that 3 shares of EPM would not have voting rights, in exchange for $150 million dollars. The Swedes define four of the seven positions on the board of directors, and the appointment of the management team. The president for two years is the Paraguayan Marcel Cataldo who came to the position after having been director of business development for Millicom in Latin America from the regional headquarters in Miami.
Fate has led her to assume the reins of the company alone. Her brother Max, with whom she formed the Verdere partnership, died at the age of 30 due to complications from diabetes. Two tragic circumstances that have led her to invest in technology companies in the area of health and innovations that change people’s lives, decisions that she makes as the majority shareholder, with a 35.1% stake in Kinnevik.
He stepped down as Kinnevik’s CEO and chairman in 2016 but continues to wield his influence as a board member from Sweden, where he moved with his four children. Her husband, the English Alexander Fitzgibbons, is a renowned event organizer who moves between both countries. The business focus is on the different companies in the company’s portfolio, such as Millicom International Cellular, Tele2 (the largest telecommunications operator in the Nordic and Baltic countries), Zalando (the virtual German fashion store) and Global Fashion Group (trade fashion electronics in emerging markets) where Sweden’s big investors have a seat, and some others of their personal interest such as Spotify or the philanthropic organization Reach for Change, aimed at children and young people.
The new route that your company Tigo-Une has taken in Colombia is aligned with those of Millicom: increase data traffic through the installed infrastructure. Under the leadership of Marcel Cataldo, last August an agreement was made to “lease” their networks to the operator Flash Mobile, which has an innovative sales strategy under the multilevel model. It will be the fourth company to provide cellular services under a Mobile Virtual Operator – OMV agreement on TigoUne networks, after Móvil Éxito, Uff Móvil and ETB (2G and 3G connectivity).
Very surely the echoes of his successes in Latin America reach his icy Swedish where he decided to take root so that his children do not lose their Nordic roots.