Since January, SSH Communications Security has lowered its sales outlook, watched an incoming chief financial officer withdraw before her start date, and completed a tender offer on its convertible capital securities. Lars Bell's appointment as chief executive, announced 3 September and effective 1 October, is the most visible event in that sequence. It is not the first.
Read on its own, a planned CEO succession looks orderly. Read against the year behind it, it is the last announced piece of a rebuild that began eight months earlier.
The share price read it the other way round. Most of that sequence passed with barely a mark: the three CFO events moved the share −2.2%, +0.5% and −0.5%. Then, in the five sessions to 7 September, SSH's share (SSH1V, Nasdaq Helsinki) rose from EUR 1.786 to EUR 2.67, up 49.5%, on 569,004 shares against August's 403,172 across 21 sessions.
Three CFO plans, and a quarter with EBITDA negative
SSH lowered its 2025 net sales outlook on 2 January. Full-year 2025 net sales came in down 2.4%; Q1 2026 turned EBITDA negative; Q2 revenue recovered to EUR 5.7 million, up 6.8% year on year, while EBITDA was down 40.7%.
The finance seat moved three times in three months. Maria Alahuhta was appointed CFO on 2 April, her start date was brought forward to 1 October, and on 12 June SSH disclosed she would not take up the role. Cristian Arias was appointed on 7 July, starting 1 October, the same day Bell begins.
What the market paid for
Date | Event | Close (EUR) | Move | Volume |
15 Jan | Two New Partnerships with COMIT Corporation in Vietnam and ChyunYao in Taiwan. | 3.47 | +24.4% | 607,544 |
17 Feb | FY2025 results | 2.41 | −6.9% | 176,389 |
2 Apr | Alahuhta appointed CFO | 2.19 | −2.2% | 33,058 |
12 Jun | Alahuhta withdraws | 2.10 | +0.5% | 40,611 |
7 Jul | Arias appointed CFO | 1.98 | −0.5% | 38,468 |
17 Jul | CEO retirement + Q2 | 2.035 | −8.7% | 39,444 |
3 Sep | Bell appointed CEO | 2.11 | +11.1% | 98,535 |
7 Sep | Bank selects PrivX for Zero Trust | 2.67 | +18.7% | 209,389 |
Three CFO events: −2.2%, +0.5%, −0.5%. None traded an average day's volume for the year (55,597 shares). On the day SSH disclosed that an incoming CFO would not take up the role, the share rose half a per cent on 40,611 shares.
The disclosures that did move it were the outlook cut on 2 January (−7.9%), the full-year results on 17 February (−6.9%), and the CEO seat. The 17 July release, which carried the retirement of Rami Raulas alongside the Q2 figures, took the share down 8.7% that day, and 18.2% from the 16 July close to the 23 July close.
The largest single day of the September run came two sessions after the appointment was public, on 7 September, +18.7%, as one of the world's largest banks selected SSH Communications Security's PrivX solution to implement Zero Trust with Zero Standing Access.
Same buyer, different product
Bell comes from Omada A/S, where he was Chief Customer Officer and, from November 2025 to April 2026, interim chief executive. Before that: chief executive of Pedab Denmark, and long tenures at Microsoft, HP and IBM: more than twenty-five years in enterprise software.
His discipline is Identity Governance and Administration. SSH sells Zero Trust privileged access and quantum-safe network encryption. The two compete for the same security budget and often reach the same buyer, but they are not the same product.
What to watch
Bell and Arias both start on 1 October, which makes SSH's Q3 report the first disclosure a rebuilt executive team owns rather than inherits. It is also the first test of whether the Q2 revenue recovery survives these changes.
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Since January, SSH Communications Security has lowered its sales outlook, watched an incoming chief financial officer withdraw before her start date, and completed a tender offer on its convertible capital securities. Lars Bell's appointment as chief executive, announced 3 September and effective 1 October, is the most visible event in that sequence. It is not the first.
Read on its own, a planned CEO succession looks orderly. Read against the year behind it, it is the last announced piece of a rebuild that began eight months earlier.
The share price read it the other way round. Most of that sequence passed with barely a mark: the three CFO events moved the share −2.2%, +0.5% and −0.5%. Then, in the five sessions to 7 September, SSH's share (SSH1V, Nasdaq Helsinki) rose from EUR 1.786 to EUR 2.67, up 49.5%, on 569,004 shares against August's 403,172 across 21 sessions.
Three CFO plans, and a quarter with EBITDA negative
SSH lowered its 2025 net sales outlook on 2 January. Full-year 2025 net sales came in down 2.4%; Q1 2026 turned EBITDA negative; Q2 revenue recovered to EUR 5.7 million, up 6.8% year on year, while EBITDA was down 40.7%.
The finance seat moved three times in three months. Maria Alahuhta was appointed CFO on 2 April, her start date was brought forward to 1 October, and on 12 June SSH disclosed she would not take up the role. Cristian Arias was appointed on 7 July, starting 1 October, the same day Bell begins.
What the market paid for
Date | Event | Close (EUR) | Move | Volume |
15 Jan | Two New Partnerships with COMIT Corporation in Vietnam and ChyunYao in Taiwan. | 3.47 | +24.4% | 607,544 |
17 Feb | FY2025 results | 2.41 | −6.9% | 176,389 |
2 Apr | Alahuhta appointed CFO | 2.19 | −2.2% | 33,058 |
12 Jun | Alahuhta withdraws | 2.10 | +0.5% | 40,611 |
7 Jul | Arias appointed CFO | 1.98 | −0.5% | 38,468 |
17 Jul | CEO retirement + Q2 | 2.035 | −8.7% | 39,444 |
3 Sep | Bell appointed CEO | 2.11 | +11.1% | 98,535 |
7 Sep | Bank selects PrivX for Zero Trust | 2.67 | +18.7% | 209,389 |
Three CFO events: −2.2%, +0.5%, −0.5%. None traded an average day's volume for the year (55,597 shares). On the day SSH disclosed that an incoming CFO would not take up the role, the share rose half a per cent on 40,611 shares.
The disclosures that did move it were the outlook cut on 2 January (−7.9%), the full-year results on 17 February (−6.9%), and the CEO seat. The 17 July release, which carried the retirement of Rami Raulas alongside the Q2 figures, took the share down 8.7% that day, and 18.2% from the 16 July close to the 23 July close.
The largest single day of the September run came two sessions after the appointment was public, on 7 September, +18.7%, as one of the world's largest banks selected SSH Communications Security's PrivX solution to implement Zero Trust with Zero Standing Access.
Same buyer, different product
Bell comes from Omada A/S, where he was Chief Customer Officer and, from November 2025 to April 2026, interim chief executive. Before that: chief executive of Pedab Denmark, and long tenures at Microsoft, HP and IBM: more than twenty-five years in enterprise software.
His discipline is Identity Governance and Administration. SSH sells Zero Trust privileged access and quantum-safe network encryption. The two compete for the same security budget and often reach the same buyer, but they are not the same product.
What to watch
Bell and Arias both start on 1 October, which makes SSH's Q3 report the first disclosure a rebuilt executive team owns rather than inherits. It is also the first test of whether the Q2 revenue recovery survives these changes.
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