BYNO

Unit Split

BYNOU
First $9.97
Recent $10.94
10%

byNordic Acquisition Corp

Raised
$150M
CIK
1801417
SPAC Ticker
BYNOU
Focus
Technology, FinTech
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Jonas Olsson has served as our Chairman of the Board since inception. Mr. Olsson has more than 30 years of global operating experience stemming from his various roles with fashion conglomerate Hennes & Mauritz AB (“H&M”). Currently, Mr. Olsson is a global controller of H&M. Mr. Olsson began his career in 1988 at H&M in Sweden as an operative controller. Within one year, Mr. Olsson rose to become financial manager of H&M Germany, a position he held for nine years. In 1994, he also became the chief financial officer of H&M Austria. Over the course of the next twenty years, he served as a member of H&M’s expansion team, leading efforts in management, finance, and controlling in twelve different countries across four continents. Working in Austria, Japan, South Korea, the Baltics, United States, and Chile, Mr. Olsson built out infrastructure to support growth along with financial stability. Mr. Olsson was also responsible for management and operational planning in some of H&M’s most profitable and fastest-growing national businesses such as Germany, Denmark, and Poland. In 2014, he joined the global controlling group of H&M, where he helps lead oversight of all ten H&M brands. Mr. Olsson attended an MBA program in International Business at Lund University from 1981 to 1985. Mr. Olsson is well qualified to serve as a director due to his extensive industry and management experience.

Michael Hermansson has served as our Chief Executive Officer since March 2020. Mr. Hermansson has a 35-year long career with top management positions in international corporations. Mr. Hermansson has been chief executive officer of numerous growth and turn-around companies owned by private equity firms such as Triton Investments Advisers LLP and Nordic Capital and their related funds. Mr. Hermansson started his career in the 1980’s with several director positions with Sandvik AB in Latin America as well as in several European countries. Mr. Hermansson has been the chairman of the board of Learning 2 Sleep L2S AB since June 2019, the chairman of the board of Vevios AB since November 2019 and a board member of Framtix Holding AB since June 2019. He was also the chief executive officer of AdderaCare AB from January 2016 to September 2019. From 2014 to 2015, Mr. Hermansson served as chief executive officer of Saferoad Group, a European market leader in road safety infrastructure products. At Saferoad Group, he led several acquisitions, refinanced the company and initiated the exit process which later led to the 2017 IPO of the company. From 2004 to 2013, he served as the chief executive officer of GCE Group, a global leader in gas control technologies for medical equipment, industrial applications, semiconductor manufacturing and other applications. At GCE Group, he managed the divestiture process for private equity owner Triton Equity Partners, ultimately delivering a very favourable cash return. Mr. Hermansson remained with the company under its new primary owner, Argan Capital, as chief executive officer of the group until 2013. Mr. Hermansson received a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from University of Gothenburg.

Thomas Fairfield has served as our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer since March 2020. Mr. Fairfield has been providing strategic business consulting services through Cambio Group LLC (“Cambio”) that he founded and has owned since July 2018. In connection with Cambio’s engagement by Rhino Resource Partners LP, an energy company, Mr. Fairfield was appointed Chief Restructuring Officer of Rhino in May 2020, and Rhino filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2020. Mr. Fairfield has served as a member of the board of managers of Casablanca Holdings GP LLC, a holding company for Apple Leisure Group, a hospitality and travel services company, since May 2020. In connection with Cambio’s engagement by Journey Group Acquisition Co., LLC (“Journey Group”), a death care services company operating funeral, cemetery and cremation businesses in several states, Mr. Fairfield has been serving as the president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of managers of Journey Group since October 2018. Since December 2018, Mr. Fairfield has served as an advisory director of Earned LLC, a privately-held, early-stage company providing retail credit related products and services. Prior to starting Cambio, Mr. Fairfield served as chief operating officer of WMIH Corp. from May 2015 to July 2018 and as a director from May 2015 to June 2017. WMIH Corp., which is now known as Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (NASDAQ: COOP), focused on identifying and consummating an accretive acquisition transaction across a broad array of industries, with a primary focus on the financial institutions sector. During his tenure at WMIH Corp., Mr. Fairfield was involved in leading the company’s efforts to acquire Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. which provides quality servicing, origination and transaction-based services related principally to single-family residences throughout the United States. Prior to joining WMIH Corp., from March 2006 to May 2015, Mr. Fairfield held various officer positions with Capmark Financial Group Inc. (“Capmark”), a commercial real estate finance and services company. While at Capmark, he held the positions of chief operating officer, general counsel, secretary, and, most recently, served as executive vice president from November 2014 to May 2015. In addition, Mr. Fairfield served as a director of Capmark from September 2011 to June 2017. He also served as a director of various privately-owned subsidiaries of Capmark from September 2011 to February 2020. During his tenure at Capmark, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2009 and emerged in September 2011. In addition to taking a leading role in guiding Capmark out of bankruptcy, Mr. Fairfield assisted in Capmark’s acquisition of Bluestem Brands, Inc. (“Bluestem”), a company operating multiple direct to consumer multi-channel retail brands offering a broad selection of merchandise and credit options to consumers, after which the company was renamed. In January 2020, he returned to serve on the board of Bluestem, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2020. Prior to 2006, Mr. Fairfield practiced law for more than twenty years at several prominent international law firms, where his practice focused on general corporate and securities law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and financial services. He also served as a director and a member of the audit committee of Courtagen Life Sciences Inc., a privately-held company focused on genetic testing from April 2015 to July 2017 and The Cash Store Financial Services Inc., a retail loan products and services provider, from August 2013 to April 2014. Mr. Fairfield has a Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University. He is admitted to the bar of the states of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, and the District of Columbia, and is a member of the American Bar Association.

Mats Karlsson has served as our Director of Acquisition since March 2020. Mr. Karlsson is a serial entrepreneur from Sweden with more than 25 years of management experience and a number of successful investments and exits. Mr. Karlsson is the owner and has been the chief executive officer of Vendere AB, a family office, since January 2005. From August 2012 to February 2019, he was the chief executive officer and a board member of Wattguard Holding AB, a university spin-off that later became a portfolio company of the Swedish Energy Agency. He served as the chief marketing officer of IT Assign AB from August 2001 to April 2002, and as the chief executive officer of Bluewave AB, both of companies were Swedish subsidiaries of Maersk Data, AP Möller, a large Danish business conglomerate with activities in the transport, logistics and energy sectors. After helping to lead Maersk’s sale of Maersk Data to the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 2004, Mr. Karlsson became the chief marketing officer and co-owner of Tactel, a mobile technology software development company that was later sold in 2009 to private equity fund FSN Capital III. Mr. Karlsson received his Executive MBA from M-Gruppen.

Alexander “Bigge” Lidgren has served as our Director of Marketing since March 2020. Mr. Lidgren, is a serial entrepreneur from Sweden with a strong track record also of investing. Mr. Lidgren most recently was a managing director of Loudspring Oyj (HSLE: LOUD), a publicly-listed venture capital accelerator. During his tenure as chief executive officer, he led the investment into among others Plugsurfing GmbH, an electric car charging network aggregator. Plugsurfing was later acquired by Fortum Oyj in 2018, and delivered a favourable return on investment. Mr. Lidgren also managed the partial sales of Loudspring’s investment into Enersize Oyj (OM: ENERS), a Finnish industrial energy efficiency firm. Prior to Loudspring, he was a portfolio manager from 2012 to 2014 at the Swedish Energy Agency. Before his time at the SEA, Mr. Lidgren was a co-founder and managing director of an investor membership network, Cleantech Scandinavia, from 2006 to 2012, where he sourced more than 700 investments within the Nordic cleantech industry on behalf of more than 100 global venture capital investors. In 2004, Mr. Lidgren co-founded Bokks AB, a digital signage systems company, which was later sold to MultiQ International AB in 2007. Mr. Lidgren received a Bachelor of Science in Business administration in 1997 and a Master of Science in Environmental Management and Policy from Lund University in 2005.

Christian Merheim has served as our Director of Technology since March 2020. Mr. Merheim has a broad and extensive experience in FinTech, technology, communications, and business development. Mr. Merheim started his career in the technology industry, founding a number of high-tech start-ups covering video over IP (Bokks AB), parallel computing (Mitrionics AB), and advanced image processing (Westpot AB). Mr. Merheim has been serving on the board of Enersize Oyj since July 2016, where he managed the IPO of Enersize Oyj, a Finnish industrial energy efficiency firm using IoT. He has been the co-owner of Grimer Holding AB since April 2015 and a board member of Troberg Trading Heavy Equipment AB since January 2015. He was a deputy board member of Airdev AB, a subsidiary of Enersize Qyj, from December 2018 to September 2019. He was the chairman of the board of Enersize Advanced Research AB, a subsidiary of Enersize Qyj, from November 2017 to April 2019. He also served as a board member of Nuuka Oyj from June 2017 to July 2018. Since 2015 he has served as a consultant in technology development, financing and business development for various start-up and growth companies. He entered into FinTech and blockchain technology in 2012 when he co-founded Cryex Group AB and raised a seed financing for the company. He was the chief strategy officer of Cryex Group AB from January to June 2015. Mr. Merheim’s work at Cryex involved preparation of regulatory filings for PSD payments and MIFID settlement permits with SWE-FSA as well as designing integration with international legacy banking systems such as SWIFT and SEPA. Mr. Merheim received his M.Sc in Engineering from Lund University in 1998.

Anders Norlin has served as our Director since inception. Mr. Norlin is the chief executive officer of a Swedish FinTech hub, Findec. Findec is a membership organisation for FinTech growth companies and arranges accelerator and growth programs, networking events, and facilitates collaborations within the Nordic FinTech, regtech, insuretech and blockchain industries. The organisation works in partnership with, among others, Nordea and PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”), as well as other international FinTech hubs. Through his work and position within the FinTech industry, Mr. Norlin has an extensive network with FinTech investors, entrepreneurs, and companies as well as with legacy financial institutions through which the company with be able to access dealflow opportunities. From August 2017 to August 2019, Mr. Norlin was a partner of Embassy House, a co-working space housing 70 companies focused on FinTech, property technology (“proptech”), Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”), gaming and blockchain technology. Mr. Norlin has been a partner at Coach & Capital, a venture capital fund with a focus on cleantech and information and communications technologies (ICT) since January 2008. Between January 2013 and December 2016, Mr. Norlin served as an investment manager at Frame Invest, a private equity investor with a focus on B2B companies primarily within IT. From January 2002 to December 2007, Mr. Norlin served as investment manager at Traction, a Swedish private equity investment company listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm. In his role as investment manager at Traction, he served as a member of the board at several portfolio companies. Mr. Norlin holds a master of science in industrial management & mechanical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology and a degree in advanced marketing communication from Berghs School of Communication. Our management team believes that Mr. Norlin is well qualified to serve as a director due to his extensive experience within private equity technology investments as well as his deep knowledge of, and central position within, Nordic FinTech.

Emanuel R. Pearlman has served as our Director since inception. Mr. Pearlman currently serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Liberation Investment Group, a New York based investment management and financial consulting firm, which he founded in January 2003. Mr. Pearlman has been a member of the Board of Directors of Network-1 Technologies, Inc. (NYSE MKT:NTIP) since January 2012, where he serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee and a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Mr. Pearlman served as executive chairman of Empire Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:NYNY), from June 2016 until November 2019 and served as its Non-Executive Chairman of the Board from September 2010 through May 2016, and served on its board of directors from May 2010 to November 2019. Mr. Pearlman was a member of the board of directors of CEVA Logistics, AG (SIX:CEVA) from May 2018 until October 2019 and served on its audit committee from May 2018 through October 2019 and its nomination and governance committee from May 2018 through May 2019. From June 2013 through May 2018, he served on the Board of Directors of CEVA Holdings, LLC. From November 2018 through February 2019, Mr. Pearlman served on the board of managers and as president of each of SRC O.P. LLC, SRC Facilities LLC and SRC Real Estate (TX) LLC, which are special purpose bankruptcy remote limited liability companies with ownership of approximately 100 real estate properties of Sears. From May 2017 through September 2017, Mr. Pearlman served on the board of directors of ClubCorp Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:MYCC), where he served on the strategic review committee. From 2009-2014 he also served as the sole independent director of the Fontainebleau Miami JV LLC, which owns and operates the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. Mr. Pearlman served as a member of the board of directors of Dune Energy (OTCBB: DUNR.OB) from January 2012 to January 2013 and Jameson Inns, Inc. from January 2012 to December 2012. He also served as a director of Multimedia Games, Inc., (NASDAQ — GS: MGAM) from October 2006 to March 2010. Mr. Pearlman holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics from Duke University. Mr. Pearlman is well qualified to serve as a director due to his extensive public company management experience.

Anna Yukiko Bickenbach has served as our Director since inception. Ms. Bickenbach has a wide network within the German tech and FinTech community which will bring in dealflow opportunities through the main German tech hubs as well as directly from her network of German and international tech entrepreneurs and investors. Ms. Bickenbach has been serving as the event and program manager for the “Worldchangers in Tech” and “Proptech Innovation Summit” at the GERMANTECH Foundation since October 2019. From February 2012 to August 2019, she worked as an impact manager for Mobile Economy GmbH, one of Europe’s leading green innovation network for investors, entrepreneurs and large corporations. From May 2018 to May 2019 she was also the marketing project manager for Avesu GmbH, a producer of vegan shoes where she has coordinated their European market strategy as well as facilitate partnership networks, including partners such as Peta, BKK-BVita, Provita. She was also country manager for fast growing foodtech start-up ResQ Club Oy during their German market introduction from July 2016 to January 2017. In 2013 she co-founded Ecotastic GmbH and was its chief sales and brand officer until February 2016, the company behind the eco loyalty reward Ecotastic mobile app. Between 2009 to 2011, she worked for the assisting chair of the agricultural economics faculty and the assisting chair in economics of horticultural production. From 2009 to 2010, she acted as an editor for Öko-Institute e.V, Institute for Applied Ecology with publications in 2010 in the areas of impact evaluation and climate change at Copenhagen Talks 2010. She earned a double bachelor’s degree in political science and in international studies with a minor in German from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2008. She also has a master’s degree in Integrated Natural Resource Management from the Humboldt Univerität in Berlin in 2011. Ms. Bickenbach is well qualified to serve as a director due to her entrepreneurship and extensive experience in a wide range of European tech sectors.