The appointments support Tokmanni's push to improve Dollarstore and redefine its strategy 

Tokmanni Group has strengthened its leadership team with two appointments to lead Dollarstore and oversee group strategy, underscoring new CEO Sampo Päällysaho's effort to rebuild the retailer's leadership around the weakest part of its Nordic expansion.

Martin Sörenhag, managing director for the Nordic countries at Flying Tiger Copenhagen, will join Tokmanni as managing director of Dollarstore on Nov. 1, 2026, as the retailer accelerates efforts to restore profitability at its struggling Swedish discount chain, Tokmanni Group, the Finnish discount retailer that owns Dollarstore and Click Shoes, announced yesterday.

Moreover, Ulrika Göransson, director of retail and associations at Swedish fuel company OKQ8, will become Tokmanni’s chief strategy and transformation officer on Sept. 1, where she will help shape the group's next strategic phase.

Tokmanni is one of the Nordic region's largest discount retailers, operating Finland's Tokmanni chain alongside Sweden's Dollarstore and Denmark's Big Dollar. The 2023 acquisition of Dollarstore marked the group's first major expansion outside Finland and underpins its ambition to build a leading Nordic value retailer.

The appointments mark Päällysaho's second executive team reshuffle since taking over as CEO on July 6 following Mika Rautiainen's retirement. Both executives will report directly to Päällysaho. Dollarstore Managing Director Timo Heimo will remain in the role until Sörenhag joins before returning to Finland by the end of the year. 

Two retail executives with Nordic operating experience

Päällysaho said Sörenhag's international retail background and commercial expertise make him well suited to build on the initiatives already underway to improve customer traffic and strengthen Dollarstore's market appeal. He said the new leader will help advance those efforts and support the chain's long-term growth and profitability.

Sörenhag has led Flying Tiger Copenhagen's Nordic business since 2019, overseeing about 160 stores across five countries. He previously managed the retailer's Swedish operations and has held senior positions at COOP, K-Rauta, Apoteket Hjärtat and Lidl, giving him more than two decades of Nordic retail leadership experience.

Göransson joins after serving at OKQ8 since 2025. Earlier roles include CEO positions at Zetas Garden and Teknikmagasinet's Swedish and Norwegian operations, along with senior strategy, business development and marketing roles at Clas Ohlson. 

The CEO also said Göransson "will play an important role in shaping and executing our future strategy and supporting the development of our business."

Dollarstore turnaround becomes an early priority

The appointments come as Dollarstore remains a key focus for Tokmanni. In the first quarter of 2026, the segment increased revenue by over 7% year over year, but comparable EBIT declined over 35% to a loss of EUR 10.5 million as weak like-for-like sales weighed on profitability.

The challenges have also affected the wider group. Tokmanni said Dollarstore's integration contributed to significant additional costs in 2025, when full-year comparable EBIT declined 15% to EUR 84.8 million. In the third quarter, higher Dollarstore expenses weighed on group comparable EBIT despite record comparable EBIT in the core Tokmanni segment. The board also withheld a second 2024 dividend installment to strengthen the balance sheet ahead of planned investments.

Against that backdrop, Sörenhag has been brought in to help drive Dollarstore's turnaround, while Göransson joins as Tokmanni prepares its next phase of strategy under CEO Sampo Päällysaho.

What Tokmanni is trying to accomplish

Together, the hires reflect Tokmanni's effort to balance Dollarstore's turnaround with the group's longer-term strategic priorities.

Sörenhag will oversee the next stage of Dollarstore's turnaround by advancing the broader-assortment pilot stores in Erikslund and Kållered, building on the Billigast low-price campaign and completing the chain's integration into Tokmanni's sourcing organization and back-end systems through 2026.

Göransson, meanwhile, joins as the company updates its strategic and financial targets for the period beyond 2025. Tokmanni has said the process will focus on strengthening synergy utilization and supporting sustainable, profitable growth while it works toward its unchanged 2026 guidance of EUR 1.78 billion to EUR 1.86 billion in revenue and comparable EBIT of EUR 85 million to EUR 105 million.

Investor watchpoints

For investors, the appointments create two clear milestones to follow. The first is whether Sörenhag can improve Dollarstore's performance before further losses weigh on group profitability. The second is whether Göransson helps shape Tokmanni's strategic and financial direction beyond its previous strategy period, which ended in 2025.

The leadership changes also extend a period of rapid transition at the top of the company. Within roughly four months, Tokmanni will have replaced its CEO, chief strategy and transformation officer, and Dollarstore managing director. Investors will also be watching whether the board resumes a discretionary second dividend installment after withholding the equivalent payment for 2024 to preserve balance-sheet capacity.

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Leaders

Flying Tiger Copenhagen's Martin Sörenhag joins Tokmanni to revive Dollarstore as OKQ8's Ulrika Göransson leads strategy

Flying Tiger Copenhagen's Martin Sörenhag joins Tokmanni to revive Dollarstore as OKQ8's Ulrika Göransson leads strategy

·

5 min read

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Credit: Tokamanni

Credit: Tokamanni

The appointments support Tokmanni's push to improve Dollarstore and redefine its strategy 

Tokmanni Group has strengthened its leadership team with two appointments to lead Dollarstore and oversee group strategy, underscoring new CEO Sampo Päällysaho's effort to rebuild the retailer's leadership around the weakest part of its Nordic expansion.

Martin Sörenhag, managing director for the Nordic countries at Flying Tiger Copenhagen, will join Tokmanni as managing director of Dollarstore on Nov. 1, 2026, as the retailer accelerates efforts to restore profitability at its struggling Swedish discount chain, Tokmanni Group, the Finnish discount retailer that owns Dollarstore and Click Shoes, announced yesterday.

Moreover, Ulrika Göransson, director of retail and associations at Swedish fuel company OKQ8, will become Tokmanni’s chief strategy and transformation officer on Sept. 1, where she will help shape the group's next strategic phase.

Tokmanni is one of the Nordic region's largest discount retailers, operating Finland's Tokmanni chain alongside Sweden's Dollarstore and Denmark's Big Dollar. The 2023 acquisition of Dollarstore marked the group's first major expansion outside Finland and underpins its ambition to build a leading Nordic value retailer.

The appointments mark Päällysaho's second executive team reshuffle since taking over as CEO on July 6 following Mika Rautiainen's retirement. Both executives will report directly to Päällysaho. Dollarstore Managing Director Timo Heimo will remain in the role until Sörenhag joins before returning to Finland by the end of the year. 

Two retail executives with Nordic operating experience

Päällysaho said Sörenhag's international retail background and commercial expertise make him well suited to build on the initiatives already underway to improve customer traffic and strengthen Dollarstore's market appeal. He said the new leader will help advance those efforts and support the chain's long-term growth and profitability.

Sörenhag has led Flying Tiger Copenhagen's Nordic business since 2019, overseeing about 160 stores across five countries. He previously managed the retailer's Swedish operations and has held senior positions at COOP, K-Rauta, Apoteket Hjärtat and Lidl, giving him more than two decades of Nordic retail leadership experience.

Göransson joins after serving at OKQ8 since 2025. Earlier roles include CEO positions at Zetas Garden and Teknikmagasinet's Swedish and Norwegian operations, along with senior strategy, business development and marketing roles at Clas Ohlson. 

The CEO also said Göransson "will play an important role in shaping and executing our future strategy and supporting the development of our business."

Dollarstore turnaround becomes an early priority

The appointments come as Dollarstore remains a key focus for Tokmanni. In the first quarter of 2026, the segment increased revenue by over 7% year over year, but comparable EBIT declined over 35% to a loss of EUR 10.5 million as weak like-for-like sales weighed on profitability.

The challenges have also affected the wider group. Tokmanni said Dollarstore's integration contributed to significant additional costs in 2025, when full-year comparable EBIT declined 15% to EUR 84.8 million. In the third quarter, higher Dollarstore expenses weighed on group comparable EBIT despite record comparable EBIT in the core Tokmanni segment. The board also withheld a second 2024 dividend installment to strengthen the balance sheet ahead of planned investments.

Against that backdrop, Sörenhag has been brought in to help drive Dollarstore's turnaround, while Göransson joins as Tokmanni prepares its next phase of strategy under CEO Sampo Päällysaho.

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What Tokmanni is trying to accomplish

Together, the hires reflect Tokmanni's effort to balance Dollarstore's turnaround with the group's longer-term strategic priorities.

Sörenhag will oversee the next stage of Dollarstore's turnaround by advancing the broader-assortment pilot stores in Erikslund and Kållered, building on the Billigast low-price campaign and completing the chain's integration into Tokmanni's sourcing organization and back-end systems through 2026.

Göransson, meanwhile, joins as the company updates its strategic and financial targets for the period beyond 2025. Tokmanni has said the process will focus on strengthening synergy utilization and supporting sustainable, profitable growth while it works toward its unchanged 2026 guidance of EUR 1.78 billion to EUR 1.86 billion in revenue and comparable EBIT of EUR 85 million to EUR 105 million.

Investor watchpoints

For investors, the appointments create two clear milestones to follow. The first is whether Sörenhag can improve Dollarstore's performance before further losses weigh on group profitability. The second is whether Göransson helps shape Tokmanni's strategic and financial direction beyond its previous strategy period, which ended in 2025.

The leadership changes also extend a period of rapid transition at the top of the company. Within roughly four months, Tokmanni will have replaced its CEO, chief strategy and transformation officer, and Dollarstore managing director. Investors will also be watching whether the board resumes a discretionary second dividend installment after withholding the equivalent payment for 2024 to preserve balance-sheet capacity.

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Authors

Emmi Laine is head of business content at Listeds and our lead for finance and business coverage. She sets the editorial agenda, interviews Nordic business leaders, and writes stories, newsletters, and social content on timely market and corporate topics. Emmi brings nearly eight years of experience from Shanghai's Yicai Global / Yicai Media Group, where she was awarded for reporting on China’s economy, finance sector, and technology innovation. She holds an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s degree in International Design Business Management from Aalto University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Culture Studies with a major in Journalism from Stockholm University and has studied Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Emmi is a Finnish citizen and has lived in Finland, Sweden, China, and Portugal.

Emmi Laine is head of business content at Listeds and our lead for finance and business coverage. She sets the editorial agenda, interviews Nordic business leaders, and writes stories, newsletters, and social content on timely market and corporate topics. Emmi brings nearly eight years of experience from Shanghai's Yicai Global / Yicai Media Group, where she was awarded for reporting on China’s economy, finance sector, and technology innovation. She holds an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s degree in International Design Business Management from Aalto University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Culture Studies with a major in Journalism from Stockholm University and has studied Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Emmi is a Finnish citizen and has lived in Finland, Sweden, China, and Portugal.

Devdatta Temgire is a data and business analyst at Listeds. He contributes research, data analysis, and pattern detection to the publication’s coverage of Nordic-listed companies, with a focus on board composition, leadership transitions, and financials. He holds an honors degree in artificial intelligence and data science alongside a bachelor’s in computer engineering, and previously worked at KPMG.

Devdatta Temgire is a data and business analyst at Listeds. He contributes research, data analysis, and pattern detection to the publication’s coverage of Nordic-listed companies, with a focus on board composition, leadership transitions, and financials. He holds an honors degree in artificial intelligence and data science alongside a bachelor’s in computer engineering, and previously worked at KPMG.

Authors

Journalist

Emmi Laine is head of business content at Listeds and our lead for finance and business coverage. She sets the editorial agenda, interviews Nordic business leaders, and writes stories, newsletters, and social content on timely market and corporate topics. Emmi brings nearly eight years of experience from Shanghai's Yicai Global / Yicai Media Group, where she was awarded for reporting on China’s economy, finance sector, and technology innovation. She holds an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s degree in International Design Business Management from Aalto University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Culture Studies with a major in Journalism from Stockholm University and has studied Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Emmi is a Finnish citizen and has lived in Finland, Sweden, China, and Portugal.

Devdatta Temgire is a data and business analyst at Listeds. He contributes research, data analysis, and pattern detection to the publication’s coverage of Nordic-listed companies, with a focus on board composition, leadership transitions, and financials. He holds an honors degree in artificial intelligence and data science alongside a bachelor’s in computer engineering, and previously worked at KPMG.

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Market Signals

Oura's board is being built for Nasdaq: prospectus reveals $1.21bn in nine-month revenue and four US-market directors

Sep 4, 2026

Oura has filed publicly for a Nasdaq listing in the United States and, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, intends to list during September. The Finnish smart ring maker submitted a confidential filing in May. The prospectus arrives with a board reshaped for US public markets, and a Nordic presence now outnumbered on it.

The prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows revenue of $1.21 billion for the nine months ended 30 June 2026, the first three quarters of a fiscal year that ends 30 September, against $697.6 million in the same period a year earlier, a rise of 74%. Full-year FY2025 revenue was $907.9 million, against $406.8 million the year before. The net loss attributable to common shareholders over the same nine months was $924.3 million, compared with $182.8 million a year earlier.

Oura shipped 3.1 million rings in the nine-month period, against 1.8 million a year earlier. Membership revenue reached $240.5 million, up 121%, and paid members doubled to 5 million, the recurring line that will matter most to public-market investors, and the one that turns a hardware company into a subscription business.

The headline loss sits beneath a $985m deemed dividend

Before the deemed dividend attached to preferred shares, Oura's net result for the period was a profit of $60.8 million, against $1.6 million a year earlier. The $924.3 million figure emerges after a $985 million deemed dividend to holders of redeemable convertible preferred shares is deducted. The comparable deemed dividend a year earlier was $184.4 million.

Oura raised more than $1.2 billion privately before this filing. A Fidelity-led round in October 2025 valued the company at $11 billion. The listing could raise up to $3 billion for the company and some of its backers at a valuation exceeding $16 billion, Bloomberg reported on 24 August 2026, a repricing of roughly 45% in under a year. 

The new board adds Robinhood's IPO-era CFO and Wolt's founder

Oura said on 2 September that it will appoint Jason Warnick, Leslie Kilgore, Miki Kuusi and David Sze as directors.

Warnick spent seven years as chief financial officer of Robinhood, where he helped take the company public and through its subsequent life as a listed business. He retired from the role earlier this year and was succeeded by Shiv Verma. Before that he spent nearly two decades at Amazon across finance, investor relations, audit and enterprise risk, and began his career as a CPA at Deloitte & Touche.

Kilgore sits on the boards of Netflix and Pinterest, and has previously served on those of LinkedIn, Medallia and Nextdoor. She was chief marketing officer at Netflix, and held earlier positions at Amazon, Procter & Gamble and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Kuusi co-founded Wolt and led it as chief executive from 2014 until DoorDash acquired the company in 2022. He now oversees DoorDash's international business and serves as chief executive of London-based Deliveroo. 

Sze is a partner at Greylock Partners, where he led investments in Facebook, LinkedIn, Roblox and Pandora. He previously held senior operating roles at Excite and Excite@Home.

The four join Timo Ahopelto, Dennis Durkin, chief executive Tom Hale, Wen Hsieh, Eurie Kim and chairman David Shuman on the board.

"Adding Jason, Leslie, Miki, and David strengthens our board with leaders who know what it takes to build and scale category-defining global businesses," Hale said in the company's statement.

What the appointments say about where Oura's governance now sits

The appointments describe a specific destination. Warnick is a CFO who has already run a listing and the quarterly reporting cycle that follows it. Kilgore brings the consumer-brand seat that US public boards expect. Sze holds an investor seat. None of the three has a Nordic mandate.

That leaves a ten-person board on which Ahopelto and Kuusi are the Nordic voices, at a company founded in Oulu that will report as a US filer under SEC rules rather than the Finnish Corporate Governance Code. For Nordic investors, Oura is on the way to becoming a company you can read about but not vote on in Helsinki, the governance follows the listing venue, and the listing venue is Nasdaq.

Oura is not leaving Finland. The engineers stay, the product stays. What moves is the register, the governance regime and the venue where the company answers for itself. IQM proved that part is a choice, it took both listings. Oura’s prospectus takes one.

Market Signals

Two Helsinki demergers are locked in, a third is under review

Sep 4, 2026

UPM's shareholders approved the WISA Group separation on 31 August. Aspo votes on 7 December. Valmet has not yet approved a plan.

UPM-Kymmene's extraordinary general meeting approved the demerger of its Plywood business on 31 August 2026, seating the board of the new company at the same meeting. WISA Group Plc is expected to complete on or about 31 October and start trading on Nasdaq Helsinki on 2 November. UPM shareholders receive one WISA share for each UPM share held; the Finnish Tax Administration has ruled the demerger tax-neutral, and the Financial Supervisory Authority approved the listing prospectus in July and a supplement in August.

Aspo's board approved its own demerger plan on 3 August 2026. ESL Shipping moves into ESL Shipping Group Plc and the continuing company was renamed Telko Group Plc, on the same one-for-one basis. The extraordinary general meeting is set for 7 December, completion for 31 December, and trading in ESL Shipping Group shares for on or about 4 January 2027. A separate share exchange folds Lighthouse HoldCo's 21.4% direct stake in ESL Shipping into the new company, after which OP Finland Infrastructure LP (about 14.3%) and Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company (about 10.7%) are expected to be its two largest shareholders.

Valmet is furthest from a vote. Its board announced on 24 July 2026 that it would review separating Biomaterial Solutions and Services from Process Performance Solutions into two listed companies. No plan has been approved. An update is due no later than the full-year 2026 results. 

Where the three stand


UPM → WISA Group

Aspo → ESL Shipping Group / Telko Group

Valmet

Stage

Approved by EGM, 31 Aug 2026

Plan approved by board, 3 Aug 2026

Strategic review only

Shareholder vote

Done

7 Dec 2026

None scheduled

Completion

On or about 31 Oct 2026

31 Dec 2026

Not set

First trading day

2 Nov 2026

On or about 4 Jan 2027

Not set

CEO of new company

Tuija Suur-Hamari

Matti-Mikael Koskinen (ESL Shipping Group); Telko Group not disclosed

Not disclosed

Chair

Tapio Korpeinen

Rolf Jansson (ESL Shipping Group, intended)

Not disclosed

Net sales

EUR 409M plywood sales, 2025

EUR 178.4M (ESL Shipping Group) and EUR 294.6M (Telko Group), 12 months to June 2026

EUR 1.7B (Process Performance Solutions), annualised

2030 target

EUR 550M+ sales, 13% comparable EBIT margin

EUR 40M+ comparable EBIT

Not set

Tax-neutral ruling

Confirmed

Confirmed

n/a

The numbers behind WISA

WISA will operate seven production units across five locations in Finland and Estonia, with capacity of around 785,000 cubic metres a year. Plywood sales were EUR 409 million in 2025 on EUR 55 million of comparable EBITDA, against a 2030 target of more than EUR 550 million in sales and a 13% comparable EBIT margin, with a dividend policy of roughly half of annual profit.

The 31 August meeting also elected WISA's board — Tapio Korpeinen as chair, Mats Nordlander as deputy chair, and Sakari Ahdekivi, Frank Herrmann, Nina Kiviranta and Emmanuelle Picard, each serving until WISA's first annual general meeting. 

Valmet itself demerged from Metso in 2013.

The leadership consequences of these three transactions are covered separately by Listeds in  Two new listed CEOs, no search, no external hire: two new listed-CEO seats created without a search, filled from inside the parent, against a Large Cap tier that recorded no CEO change in the first half of 2026.

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