Ericsson said longtime executive Per Narvinger will become chief executive officer on Oct. 1, succeeding Börje Ekholm who will retire after nine years at the helm. 

Ekholm, 63, will stay on as an adviser until June 2027, the Stockholm-based telecom equipment maker said in a statement on Tuesday. Narvinger, 51, joined Ericsson in 1997 and has held positions across the company. His most recent posts were leading networks, the company’s largest business, and cloud software and service operations. 

Narvinger inherits a company navigating its way out of a period of depressed demand for telecom equipment and lackluster spending on 5G network upgrades. Last year, Ericsson announced a program to slash jobs and expenses, and the company warned in April that it was grappling with rising chip costs, caused in part by the boom in demand for artificial intelligence hardware.

“This is a pivotal time in our industry,” Narvinger said in the statement. “As AI continues to industrialize, this will increasingly require advanced connectivity solutions, an area where Ericsson is leading.” 

Rival Nokia Oyj’s shares have outperformed Ericsson’s this year, gaining about 130% to Ericsson’s 24%. The Finnish company has pivoted to focus on connections for data centers, a new strategy banking on the global spending boom on AI, to fuel sales. 

Ericsson’s shares declined 1.6% to 112.70 kronor at 1:43 p.m. in Stockholm. 

Narvinger’s appointment “signals that the board wants strong execution rather than strategic reinvention,” JPMorgan analysts including Sandeep Deshpande wrote in a note after the statement. “Eventually, the new CEO will need to tackle the issue as to whether Ericsson wants to continue to be a low sales growth but cash producing company, or whether it can leverage its intellectual property in new products/markets that will enable it to be a faster growing company.” 

When Ekholm became CEO in January 2017, Ericsson was struggling with declining profits, restructuring challenges, and increasing competition from China’s Huawei Technologies Co. He refocused the company on its core telecommunications business, and directed spending to research and development. The move ultimately helping Ericsson to gain market share and return to profitability.

More recently, Ekholm has voiced strong criticism of European dependency on China. Ekholm, a dual citizen of Sweden and the US, has resisted calls for Europe to pivot away from American technology companies and has called the push for European tech sovereignty dangerous.

Ekholm credited Narvinger with the turnaround in Ericsson’s cloud software and services business when he appointed him head of networks in 2025, calling him a “strong leader.” 

Published on June 18, 2026