Svensk Filmindustri veterans leave in restructure

Long-serving Svensk Filmindustri execs Michael Fleischer and Guttorm Petterson will leave the Scandi movie and TV major amid a high-level restructure of its Nordic operations.

Fleischer is exiting from his position as managing director of SF Film in Denmark. He has been at SF since 2000 and has led the TV and movie production efforts in the country.

“It has been an adventurous journey and I am going to miss a great company and some fantastic colleagues who with great courage, dedication and professionalism have helped to create the biggest and best movie and TV company in Denmark”, he said.

Petterson joined SF in 1999 and has run the Norwegian operation, which has produced numerous movies as well as TV shows including crime series Varg Veum.

The new organisational structure at SF will see the studio replace the managing director positions with country managers.

In Denmark by Lars Bjørn Hansen will become country manager and in Norway Bente Hagen Stokke will take the country manager role. They are both currently financial directors in their given territories.

They start in their new positions immediately and both report to company CEO Jonas Fors as does Lars Warelius, the former finance director for Finland who has returned to the company as Finnish country manager.

Svensk Filmindustri have also appointed new local sales and marketing managers. Martin Brandtler will take the role in Sweden, Thomas Schultz in Denmark and Timo Räisänen in Finland.

Speaking about the changes, Jonas Fors said: “We have formed a new strong management team, we are stepping up our production activities, we are developing the distribution teams and increasing our marketing activities. Now that Michael and Guttorm are leaving the company, we wish them the very best of luck in their future endeavors.”