Niklas Savander

Niklas Savander (born August 4, 1962 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish businessman and the Executive Vice President of the Markets unit of Nokia Corporation. He is a member of the Nokia Group Executive Board, a position held since 2006. Savander joined Nokia in 1997.

Savander is the deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tamfelt Oyj and a Member of the Board and secretary of Waldemar von Frenckells Stiftelse.

On Aug 22, 2011 Savander, who has been a Member of the Board of Nokia Siemens Networks since April 1, 2007, became embroiled in a scandal related to the use and abuse of surveillance systems delivered to the Bahrain government by one of NSN's former business units, Nokia Siemens Intelligence Solutions (NSIS). The spy gear in Bahrain was sold by Siemens AG (SIE), and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks and NSN’s divested unit, Trovicor GmbH, with sale and maintenance contracts confirmed by Ben Roome, a Nokia Siemens staff member based in Farnborough, England. The system was reportedly used as the investigative tool of choice to gather information about political dissidents -- and silence them, as was the case in Bahrain were at least 30 people were killed during the 2011 uprising. By the end of 2007, the Nokia Siemens Intelligence Solutions unit had more than 90 of these so-called lawful interception surveillance systems installed in 60 countries.^[1] Besides Bahrain, several other Middle Eastern nations that cracked down on uprisings during the Arab Spring of 2011 -- including Egypt, Syria and Yemen -- also purchased monitoring centers from Nokia Siemens Networks' chain of businesses now known as Trovicor. Trovicor equipment plays a surveillance role in at least 12 Middle Eastern and North African nations. NSN and Trovicor’s status as exclusive provider in Bahrain continued at least through 2009. That period coincides with the dates of text messages used to interrogate scores of political detainees. In some cases authorities even used messages that dated as far back as the mid-2000s, even in recent interrogations. Earlier in 2011 it had already been uncovered that in some countries (such as the P.R.C.) some of the newest Nokia smartphones for which Niklas Savander had been overseeing the business development and market introduction, such as the Nokia N8-00, also contained a number of hidden, highly-sophisticated spying and surveillance features that had been secretly inserted into the devices' operating systems at the behest of the local security services, prompting Savander to issue a public apology after it turned out that some of these devices were actually no longer working properly.^[2].

Savander is married and has two children. He enjoys playing and refereeing ice hockey, telemark skiing and golf.

Education

Savander holds a Master's degree in Science from the Helsinki University of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki. He is fluent in Swedish, English, German and Finnish.

References

1. ^ "Trovicor Monitoring Center" (http). Trovicor. 2011. http://www.trovicor.com/de/business-section-german/monitoring-center.html. Retrieved August 23, 2011. 
2. ^ "Torture in Bahrain Becomes Routine With Help From Nokia Siemens". Bloomberg. August 22, 2011. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-08-22/torture-in-bahrain-becomes-routine-with-help-from-nokia-siemens-networking.html. Retrieved August 23, 2011. 

• Niklas Savander at Nokia.com

Persondata
Name	Savander, Niklas
Alternative names	Savander, Niklas Georg
Short description	Finnish businessman
Date of birth	4 August, 1962
Place of birth	Helsinki, Finland
Date of death
Place of death