Testimonials
"Cogniance helps our portfolio companies achieve critical product delivery milestones via its deep technology expertise and its impressive ability to scale. Cogniance also provides a considerable degree of transparency and predictability into the R&D processes of our start-ups."
Jørgen Smidt, Partner, Mobile and Telecom Sunstone Capital
Board of Directors
Juha Christensen
Chairman of the Board
Christian O. Petersen
Board Member
Juha Christensen
Chairman of the Board
Juha brings broad management, board level and investment expertise to Cogniance's board. Voted one of the 25 most influential Europeans in Technology by Time Magazine, Juha has had profound impact on the industry though his efforts at companies like Symbian, Microsoft, Macromedia (now Adobe), Trolltech and Teleca.
Through Progression Partners and Sunstone Capital, Juha is involved at board level in multiple companies.
Juha wrote the business plan and led the negotiations that brought Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Sony, Samsung and others together to create the mobile operating system company Symbian. Today, Symbian is the market leader in mobile operating systems. Later he ran Microsoft's mobile platform efforts, bringing to market Pocket PC and Smartphone. After Microsoft, Juha served as President at Macromedia, bringing to market a range of diverse Internet and Mobile products.
Juha is Partner at Progression Partners and Chairman of Cogniance and Cloudmade. He is a long serving member on the board of Teleca, the largest systems integrator in the mobile industry with over 2,000 employees. 40% of mobile phones worldwide are integrated by Teleca. He is an independent board member at VirtualLogix, the leader in embedded virtualization. Until recently, Juha served on the board of Trolltech through it's IPO and subsequent sale to Nokia, and at Unwire until the exit to private equity firm LD Equities. Juha is also a founding Venture Partner at Copenhagen based Sunstone Capital, a leading European venture capital company with EUR 450 million under management.
Juha brings innovation, solid execution experience and a "get down to business" attitude to the companies he is involved with.
Christian O. Petersen
Board Member
Christian has spent the past 15 years focusing on interactive consumer experiences, particularly those leading to a purchase, with a strong focus on usability.
As CEO and Founder of Advertainers, Christian led the effort to specify and build large Rich Internet Applications for major consumer brand holders such as Kellogg’s, LEGO, Mars and Nestlé.
Following that, Christian assisted Symbian and Microsoft in targeting mobile subscribers by using the Internet for Subscriber Acquisition, and creating experiences that attract users and keep them coming back.
Recently Christian headed up Mobile Product Planning at Macromedia, developing product plans, feature-sets and roadmaps for Flash Lite, the runtime and rendering technology that forms the core handset platform for DoCoMo’s iMode and is now being deployed by Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson and most of the top 30 mobile handset manufacturers.
After Macromedia, Christian was VP Product Management at Sonopia, a US based MVNO making it possible to create your own micro segmented and branded mobile carrier - in 15 minutes or less.
Christian studied Business Administration at Henley Management College.