Team

Relationship-driven and agile team with Nordic and international backgrounds

Our investment team comprises professionals with Nordic and international backgrounds and are located in Finland, Sweden and Germany. The investment team is further complemented by our operations team in Finland as well as Armada’s Industrial Advisory Board consisting of independent investment and industry experts. Armada’s investment professionals have invested in our funds to ensure aligned incentives throughout the team.

Our team

Saija Gröndahl

Administration Assistant

Saija is an Administration Assistant at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Saija worked at Nordea as a Banking Advisor and prior to that almost 10 years at Exidio as an Administrative and Marketing Assistant.

She holds a degree in Business and Administration (QBA) from Vocational Institute Omnia.

saija.grondahl@armadacredit.com

+358 40 703 1694

Kenneth Grönholm

Director, Risk Management

Kenneth is a Director of Risk Management at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Kenneth worked at Nordic Investment Bank’s Lending Department for twenty years, among others as Head of Business Control, VP Head of Credit, Mezzanine Investment executive, and Manager, Loan administration and Analysis. Kenneth has also 10 years’ experience from shipping as Group Controller/ Ass. VP in Effoa/Effjohn International, Chief Internal Auditor in Silja Line and Board Member in Effjohn Finance.

Kenneth holds a Master of Science (Econ.) degree from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki and is an Approved Accountant at Central Chamber of Commerce.

kenneth.gronholm@armadacredit.com

+358 40 686 9930

Fredrik Hagbarth

Investment Manager

Fredrik is an Investment Manager at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Fredrik was a Senior Associate at PwC Transaction Services in Stockholm for 2.5 years. Additionally, Fredrik has worked at S-Network Global Indexes in New York City where he worked as an Index Analyst for 1 year.

Fredrik holds a B.Sc. in Finance and a B.Sc. in Global Business from William Paterson University of New Jersey.

fredrik.hagbarth@armadacredit.com

+46 72 921 86 48

Ville Kantola

Financial Director

Ville is a Financial Director at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Ville worked for 6 years at FIM Asset Management in Helsinki focusing on Finnish equities and ETF investments. Before that he worked at SEB Corporate Finance in Helsinki and at the Royal Bank of Scotland in the Nordic Corporate Finance team in Stockholm.

Ville holds a M.Sc. degree in Finance from Helsinki School of Economics and a M.Sc. degree from Helsinki University, faculty of agriculture and forestry.

ville.kantola@armadacredit.com

+358 40 808 0651

Hanna Lundqvist

Investment Manager

Hanna is an Investment Manager at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Hanna worked for 6 years at SEB within the Investment Banking division focusing on Leveraged Finance and Corporate Finance. Besides that, Hanna also worked as a lawyer and with relationship management for Large Corporates at SEB.

Hanna holds a Master of Laws from Uppsala University and has also studied Economics and Finance.

hanna.lundqvist@armadacredit.com

+46 70 763 84 19

Ilkka Santti

Managing Partner

Ilkka is a joint Managing Partner at Armada. Prior to founding Armada in 2010, Ilkka worked for seven years at Armada’s predecessor Eqvitec Partners, most recently as an Investment Director focusing on mezzanine investments. In addition, Ilkka has experience in investment banking and equity research.

He holds a M.Sc (Econ) degree in Finance from the Helsinki School of Economics and has an MBA degree from the United States.

ilkka.santti@armadacredit.com

+358 40 700 28 76

Johan Svaxén

Partner

Johan is a Partner at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Johan worked for 3 years at KPMG Corporate Finance in the Debt Advisory team. Prior to KPMG, Johan worked for 3 years in the Leveraged Finance team of Lloyds Banking Group focusing on Nordic LBOs. Johan started his career at PWC Corporate Finance. Johan’s experience includes financing of LBOs, Debt Advisory, M&A, restructurings and valuations.

Johan holds a M.Sc. degree in Finance from Jönköping International Business School.

johan.svaxen@armadacredit.com

+46 70 360 65 53

Erik Thornell

Partner

Erik is a Partner at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Erik worked as a Partner and Head of Debt Financing at Segulah, a Nordic mid-market Private Equity fund, where he spent 10 years. As Head of Debt Financing, Erik was responsible for co-ordinating all the debt financing and structuring activities of Segulah at fund and portfolio company level. His earlier positions include 8 years working for SEB Acquisition Finance, where he arranged both senior and subordinated buy-out financing for private equity sponsors and 7 years with ABN AMRO Structured Finance in Stockholm.

Erik is a Swedish national and holds a M.Sc. in Finance and International Business from the Stockholm School of Economics.

erik.thornell@armadacredit.com

+46 70 849 38 42

Seppo Toivio

Investment Director

Seppo is an Investment Director at Armada. Prior to joining Armada, Seppo worked for 12 years in the Investment Banking Credit team at J.P. Morgan in London, where he led the evaluation, preparation and execution of leveraged finance deals across various structures and situations.

Seppo holds a B.Sc. from the London School of Economics and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge.

seppo.toivio@armadacredit.com

+358 40 486 2790

Jan Wiklund

Managing Partner

Jan is a joint Managing Partner at Armada. Prior to founding Armada in 2010 and joining its predecessor in 2008, Jan was a Director in the London leveraged finance team at the Royal Bank of Scotland where he arranged both senior and mezzanine buy-out financing. His earlier positions include HSBC, GE Capital and Merrill Lynch.

Jan holds a B.Sc. from Uppsala University.

jan.wiklund@armadacredit.com

+46 70 551 40 54

Jan-Christoph Wöber

Partner

Jan-Christoph is a Partner at Armada. Prior to joining Armada in 2015, Jan-Christoph was at the Royal Bank of Scotland based in Stockholm and part of the Nordic coverage team for financial sponsors. His earlier employments include Barclays Investment Bank and Mediobanca.

Jan-Christoph is a German national and holds a M.Sc. in Finance from the Stockholm School of Economics and a B.Sc. in Economics from Maastricht University.

jan.woeber@armadacredit.com

+49 151 10567283

Our advisors

Niina Bergring

Chairperson of Armada

Niina Bergring is Chairperson of the Board at Armada. Niina has over 25 years of experience from the financial sector in Finland and internationally. She is currently a Managing Director of Multi Assets and Operations at Illusian Family Office. Before Illusian, she was the Head of Life- and non-life insurance supervision division at FIN-FSA with the responsibility for the supervision of investment related risks on the whole insurance sector at FIN-FSA. Her earlier posts include an Executive Vice President at Aktia Bank Plc and CIO and Deputy CEO of Veritas Pension Insurance Company Ltd. Niina is a board member at Stiftelsen for Åbo Academi and Vice Chairman of the Board at Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation. Sheholds an M.Sc. from Helsinki School of Economics.

Kevin Lennon

Industrial Advisory Board Member

Kevin has over 30 years’ experience in credit facing roles (including over 20 years in global leveraged finance) and was one of the founding members of Alcentra (MBO out of Barclays Capital). At Alcentra, he led the European credit research team from 2006 and became responsible for running and managing the Global Liquid Loan/High Yield credit research analyst team across London, New York and Boston in 2021. As a senior research analyst he covered the European Retail sector for >12 years. He also attained significant restructuring experience, sitting on and taking lead roles on committes on behalf of lenders across most leading European jurisdictions. He was a member of Alcentra’s European Investment Committee from 2006 onwards for both the Liquid Loan/High Yield and Private Debt businesses. He sat on Alcentra’s Risk Committee, Pricing Committee and ESG Working Group. Moreover, he had a key role in the development of Alcentra’s ESG strategy and ESG integration into the credit process. Kevin also has over six years’ experience as a Board director across Italian HQ’d and European #1 garden products manufacturing company Stiga (fka Global Garden Products) as well as French retailer, Vivarte following their respective debt-for-equity restructurings. Prior to working for Alcentra, Kevin worked at Barclays Capital, Fitch Ratings and NatWest Bank.

Lauri Ratia

Industrial Advisory Board Member

Lauri is a senior executive with extensive industrial and international experience in various fields. Currently he is a Chairman of Terrafame and a Board Member in Elematic. Prior to this, he was the Chairman of Stockmann, Paroc Group, Sponda, Nordic Morning, VR Group, Medisize and Tecnomen, and a Board Member of YIT, Inspecta Group, Meyer Turku Shipyard, LSR Group Russia and Olvi, and Vice Chairman of Kemira Grow How.

Earlier Lauri was the Managing Director of Lohja Rudus Group. Lauri holds a M.Sc. (Eng) Machine Construction degree from University of Technology of Helsinki and AMP degree from Harvard Business School. Lauri has Honorary Title 2011, Counsellor of Industries.

Simon Wakefield

Industrial Advisory Board Member

Simon was Global Head of Acquisition Finance and Mezzanine Investing at SEB from 1997 until June 2017. While based in the London office Simon travelled regularly in the Nordic countries and Germany. From 1973 to 1996 Simon had many roles at Kleinwort Benson Ltd. He specialised in servicing Japanese customers in the 1970s. Between 1982 and 1988, he was based in New York, building the LBO portfolio including mezzanine investments. Between 1988 and 1996 Simon was based in London building the Nordic mezzanine portfolio and raising European mezzanine funds.

Simon holds a Bachelor’s degree from Bristol University.