The CEO Magazine EMEA – April 2018

theceomagazine.com | 53

At Umoe Restaurants AS,

Sverre Helno is bringing

Scandinavian-style leadership

to iconic American establishments.

WORDS DANIEL HERBORN • IMAGES UMOE RESTAURANTS AS

B

efore moving into the quick service restaurant

(QSR) industry, Sverre Helno found himself

dissatisfied and longing for something more

action-packed. “I was working in car retail and,

in my opinion, that is a very slow industry,” he

recalls. “It’s very much driven by products and by

the brands. It wasn’t the kind of retail-driven business I wanted

to be in. All my life, I’ve been in fast-moving consumer goods

and I wanted to go back.”

He found the hustle and bustle he had pined for when

he became CEO of Norwegian company Umoe Restaurants

AS. Headquartered in Lysaker, it manages five brands, which

include a quartet of globally famous QSRs and Blender,

which has its own array of subsidiaries. Overall, the group

employs more than 9,000 staff across 400 outlets in Norway

and Sweden. »

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