Duell cuts management team from seven to four as CEO reshapes leadership

Digital sovereignty is moving off the IT compliance list and onto the board's risk agenda. Vivicta's Nordic Digital Sovereignty Survey 2026, published on 22 September, finds that seven in ten organisations expect to increase their sovereignty investment over the next twelve months, while fewer than three in ten are confident they control their critical data.

Not long ago, the CIO of a large Swedish company told Vivicta's CEO Satu Kiiskinen what his single highest priority was. It was knowing where the company's business-critical data actually sits. He knew a moment would come when the executive team and the board would ask him that question, and he wanted the answer ready.

The question stopped being technical

Digital sovereignty means an organisation's ability to retain control and decision-making authority over its critical data, systems and operational continuity, including when the operating environment changes.

The definition might sound like an IT matter. According to Kiiskinen, that is precisely the problem. In executive teams and boardrooms the subject is still treated too often as a compliance and technology question. Her own view is different: this is first and foremost about business continuity, risk management and the capacity to keep operating when conditions shift.

“It’s clear that sovereignty has become an increasingly important priority in the current geopolitical environment. Digital sovereignty has become a leadership priority linked to business continuity and risk management, and it’s no longer seen as just a compliance issue”

The gap is not in the budget

The survey, run by Vivicta in collaboration with the research company Kairos Future, drew 320 senior decision-makers and key advisers in Finland, Sweden and Norway between June and July 2026. All worked in organisations employing more than 500 people.

The findings describe a subject that is recognised but not yet governed:

• 70 per cent expect sovereignty-related investment to increase over the next 12 months.

• 46 per cent have a formal, explicit sovereignty strategy.

• 29 per cent strongly believe they control their critical data to a sufficient standard.

This, Kiiskinen says, is the most interesting result in the dataset. The subject is recognised, it is discussed, and organisations are willing to put money behind it. The capability still does not match the ambition. A gap has opened between intent and execution.

For a board, that is a familiar situation in unfamiliar clothing: an investment decision is coming up on a matter that too often has no strategy, no named owner and no metric.

Finland invests most. Sweden is further ahead on strategy.

Seventy-four per cent of Finnish organisations plan to increase investment, more than in Norway (69 per cent) or Sweden (68 per cent). On strategy the order reverses: a formal sovereignty strategy exists at 53 per cent of Swedish organisations, 44 per cent of Finnish ones and 39 per cent of Norwegian ones.

On control of critical data, Finland leads the comparison at 35 per cent, with Sweden and Norway at 26 per cent. Finland is ahead of its Nordic peers, and still only one Finnish organisation in three strongly believes it has sufficient control of its critical data.

Sweden, Kiiskinen notes, put sovereignty on the table some time ago. The CIO in the opening example represents that stage: the question is no longer whether the subject matters, but whether the organisation can answer when asked.

The opportunity is competitiveness.

Kiiskinen does not frame the subject as a threat. She sees it primarily as an opportunity to strengthen an organisation's resilience and competitiveness, and, ultimately, shareholder value.

Artificial intelligence connects to this directly. When the AI conversation runs hot and business benefits are wanted quickly, control of data determines whether AI can be adopted in a governed way, with risks identified in advance rather than reconstructed afterwards. Twenty-seven per cent of respondents rank AI, data use and control of decision-making among their most important sovereignty priorities. Seventeen per cent see AI as a new obstacle to data control.

On the risk side, Kiiskinen names one above the others: excessive dependency on individual providers.

Respondents agree. Dependency on external service providers tops the entire list of obstacles at 28 per cent. Cost and the complexity of an organisation's own environment follow at 23 per cent each, vendor lock-in at 16 per cent, and the absence of a strategy, owner or governance model at 14 per cent.

Dependency is rarely anyone's decision. It accumulates. Each individual choice was defensible at the time, and the result is a structure no one designed. It becomes visible only when something has to change quickly.

Full control is not the goal

Kiiskinen is careful not to overstate what the survey shows.

Complete sovereignty across every system is neither realistic nor the point, Kiiskinen says. What matters is distinguishing what is business-critical from what is not. The organisations that find a sensible balance are the ones that find resilience when conditions change

The data supports her. Only 8 per cent of respondents consider standard or global cloud sufficient for all critical workloads, and exactly the same share require full national sovereignty with elevated security. Everyone else sits somewhere in between. Seventeen per cent have not assessed the question at all.

“Ultimately, sovereignty is about freedom of action: the ability to remain in control when technology, suppliers or circumstances change. Organisations that find the right balance will be better positioned to innovate, grow and manage risk simultaneously”

What the board should ask

Kiiskinen does not present this as an easy topic for a board. The natural route onto the agenda, she says, runs through the audit committee, as part of risk management and business continuity. That does not mean it stays there. The whole board needs to take an interest.

Five questions a board can put to management at its next meeting:

1. Do we share a view of which data is business-critical to us?

2. Which systems are business-critical, and do we understand the difference between the two?

3. Where does our business-critical data actually reside, and how is it governed?

4. Who has access to it?

5. To what extent are our data, systems and decision-making genuinely under our own control, and which part of our preparedness is an assumption rather than something tested?

None of these requires technical expertise to ask. On the evidence of this survey, many organisations would struggle to answer them.

Which leaves one question on the table, and it belongs to the board rather than to IT: are boards challenging management hard enough, before the next disruption reveals the real state of their readiness?

Consumer confidence in Finland slipped in September, ending a three-month climb from April's low. Beneath the headline figure, a sharper pattern is forming. Households now rate Finland's prospects at their long-term average, while their view of their own past year remains well below pre-2022 levels, and the lowest earners are still losing purchasing power.

The consumer confidence indicator stood at 4.9 below zero in September, down from 3.0 below zero in August. August had been the strongest reading since February 2022. The long-term average since 1995 is 2.9 below zero. The indicator has now been below zero for 55 consecutive months, every month since March 2022. 

The rebound itself was fast. In April the indicator sat at 12.5 below zero, and by August it had recovered 9.5 points. September's dip is small, and one month does not make a reversal. What matters more is which parts of the survey carried the recovery, and which did not.

The national outlook has recovered 18 points since April, the household view far less

Most of the improvement since April's low has come from how consumers see Finland. The national outlook accounts for about 60 per cent of the indicator's 7.6-point rise. Consumers' view of their own past year has moved far less.

Expectations for Finland's economy over the next 12 months improved from a balance of 23.2 below zero in April to 4.7 below zero in September, which is on its long-term average level. Between March 2022 and August 2026, the same measure averaged 16.9 below zero.

Households' assessment of their own finances tells a different story. The balance for own economy now stood at 1.9 below zero in September, against an average of 4.9 above zero in the five and a half years before March 2022. Expectations for one's own economy in 12 months fell to 5.8 from 8.1 in August, short of the pre-2022 average of 9.8. Twenty-eight per cent of consumers said their finances were worse than a year earlier, while 25 per cent said better.

The gap follows income, not prices

Labour Institute for Economic Research Labore estimates that purchasing power in the bottom income decile will decline by 3.5 per cent this year, while the top decile gains 2.2 per cent. Between 2023 and 2026, the difference in purchasing power growth between the two groups will exceed 16 percentage points, with renters and single parents facing the weakest outlook. Senior researcher Milla Nyyssölä attributes the split to "different income trajectories" rather than prices.

Labore describes this as unusual by historical standards. Even in the growth years after Finland's 1990s recession, when income growth varied widely between groups, purchasing power in the lowest decile did not fall.

The confidence survey shows the same fault line. Upper-level salaried employees posted a confidence reading of 1.1 above zero in September, while the unemployed stood at 13.1 below zero and pensioners at 11.5 below zero. Greater Helsinki recorded 2.4 below zero and Eastern Finland 10.7 below zero. Women's reading of 7.4 below zero remained well under men's 2.4 below zero.

Job security is part of the explanation. Among employed consumers, 27 per cent felt their personal risk of unemployment or lay-off had increased, and only 5 per cent felt it had lessened (Statistics Finland). Price pressure has not eased either: consumers estimated inflation at 4.9 per cent over the past year and expect 4.1 per cent over the next.