Welcome to Redeye. Today, we're hosting an interview with Gapwaves' departing CEO, Lars-Inge Sjöqvist, and its current Chairman, Jonas Ehinger, who will be taking over as CEO later this year. I will start with a question to you, Lars-Inge. What led you to step down, and what does the future look like? Yeah. It was last summer, I was announcing to my board that it's going to move to the retirement of my so to speak career. I want to step back a little bit from the position at Gapwaves. I do have a big family and also grandkids today, so I will also have a little bit more time for them. It's still that I will continue to work but not in the same level as I do today. Okay. Over to you, Jonas. Could you start by telling us something about your professional background? Yeah. It's actually starting to become a bit of a list, but I've been having various CEO assignments since 22 years and various business and sales positions before that during the 1990s. Mostly within life science and med tech, but always with, yeah, high-tech companies within that sector, so, and in an international market. A few things that are very similar to the Gapwaves business right now and probably how it will be going forward. Just to compliment you are really an entrepreneur. Yes. It's important to say. Yes. Thank you. The companies have always been in an entrepreneurial setting, so not the typical big conservative or stagnant companies. It's always with innovative technologies and a strong growth agenda, which means if it's a small company that you have to be quite creative and quite entrepreneurial. Yeah. Not afraid to work, of course. Dare to go to the business. Yeah. Jonas, you have been chairman at Gapwaves for some time, so you know the company quite well. What is your experience with the company so far? Yeah. Before I became chairman, I actually was invited as a guest for, I think, half a year or just over half a year, before I was elected chairman, and then three years coming up to three years as a chairman. Yes, I do know the strategic direction of the company because that is something that Lars-Inge and I and the rest of the board have been working on, naturally, and also, the plans going forward, of course. Naturally, the CEO and the board, especially the chairman, are those topics that you work quite constantly with and very closely with also. I think I know that. Like I mentioned before, the nature of the business, having new innovation technology and finding application areas, but also customers and needs in the market, developing markets which are not per se defined from the beginning and identifying those and driving those commercially. That's very similar to what I've experienced in previous assignments and jobs. That's also what has really made me enthusiastic about Gapwaves, as a board member and to be able to contribute in that area. Fortunately, thanks to Lars-Inge, we have seen quite strong development in those aspects over the last three years, three and a half years. Yeah. Absolutely. Not only me, it's the whole company. Of course. All the employees, I will just say, because it's important that we are a big team now and yeah. I think you and us has been working quite a lot with your team at Osstell, where you are today. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's also important to mention that. Yeah. You're close to your employees. Yeah. In a small company right now, we're just below 20 in Osstell. We have been a bit more, but we were acquired by one of our customers, industrial customers. You, you're absolutely right. It's a team effort. I mean, there's not hundreds or thousands of coworkers. It's a very tight-knit team, and that's really how you have to work to bring it forward. Yeah. Have the speed. That's important when we are in this kind of building up a company early phase anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the time windows in the marketplace are really important. Yeah, absolutely. I think we have moved quickly when opportunities have come up, but always with an eye to our strategic direction. If you're too opportunistic, then of course you may end up being too scattered. Yeah. I think the team here, Gapwaves, along with its board, have had a stringency in terms of direction and application areas and what to focus on. That's also what I expect that we will continue. Yeah. Great. Could you tell us something about the vision for the company now that you're taking over? Yeah, like I said, we are already on a strategic track or direction, which I expect to continue. We have established a foothold in the automotive segment if you want to use that phrase. There are also other application areas or segments or verticals that we want to explore and also other value proposals or value offerings that we want to explore in the future, near future or mid future. There is a lot of opportunities and a lot of potential. Again, we have to be faithful to the strategy, so we don't become too scattered and end up in too many different directions at the same time. With the partnerships that we have, they require a really strong dedication and focus on delivery because obviously some of these bigger companies are expecting a lot from us, so I c annot just jump into too many new things. Clearly, it was a question to you, but I can comment, just say. Yeah. Typically HELLA, for example, is expecting us really to be successful in what we now have going into together, so to say. The end customer, in this case a big OEM in Germany, expect us to really be the best solution on the market together with HELLA. This must be fulfilled, so to say. We are in a very good situation currently, but still we have to work some years more for the full volumes. That's the case. Yeah. Well, we have talked to the team here and you know, I think it's very clear that we expect a pretty growth-driven agenda going forward. Hopefully, we will have several areas to expand within. It takes, it requires also that we succeed in the current projects, clearly. Yeah, as I always talks about quite a lot of the big customer we are approaching and having the interest for our technology, they are not always quick movers so to say. We have to be patient on some deals, but when we still are in the position and really coming into the deals, it is for a very long time we are talking about business for Gapwaves. Yeah. That's the good part of that. That's also very similar from my previous jobs. It's very long-term partnerships and once they develop, they become very much of a win-win for both parties. They are long-term. We're talking decades or at least 10 years plus, you know, as long as the technology can deliver value. It's important to think about the long term and the long run. Yeah. Looking more near term, do you have any concrete targets, like high volume agreements with new automotive customers or something like that? Mm-hmm. I have already talked about that and we are in the negotiation every week with two different customers currently for long-term agreements. One very big, one a little bit smaller. This is ongoing discussions, and sometimes they are not as quick as we are. We are moving quickly, but we also want to be in a good position when we do deals. We will not give away too much of our, so to say, technology without having good payment for it. That's, of course, value for the shareholders as well. We need to be fighting for our best prices. Yeah. I guess, it's almost needless to say that those are our obvious targets to close more agreements and more partnerships and, at the same time, keeping our eyes also on the future and opportunities. In today's world, with the turmoil going on, I think there has to be some mutual understanding that some of these discussions may take some time and, maybe, you know, there may be other interference also, especially in automotive and the supply chain issues that the automotive industry is going through. It's a complicated business landscape right now. That said, we can't really say that anything, so to say, have been impacted still from the war situation. We do have all the meetings, whatever we are doing with the customers today; it has not been decreasing. It's increasing still. We don't see that day by day here at Gapwaves. If the war will become for a long time, of course it will impact us as well. Yeah. Primarily our customers at least. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The same thing as we when we were through this Corona situation. In the beginning, we thought it might be terrible during the autumn, but we have been growing the business all the time over the Corona time as well. Even if we don't met the customers in person, we made it by Teams, and that's even worse, I would say. It's easier to convince people when you meet them and or your customers to buy things from you when you are sitting in the same room. In this case, we have done most of the business over Teams, and that can also works. It's a good experience, I would say. Mm. Also good for the environmental part. Of course. Yep. A final question, what does the near future look like until you, Jonas, take over the CEO role? Yeah. Well, until August 22nd, which is the current date that we go by, nothing really changes. I mean, I continue in the board, and Lars-Inge continues in full effect in his position as CEO, and we continue our collaboration a s Chairman and CEO, and within the board. It doesn't affect the operations of the company or the commercial work, which is the most important aspect here as well, which Lars-Inge is driving, of course. No one should expect any near future changes. Then, of course, after August 22nd, we are already in various partnerships, and of course, we always keep an eye on new opportunities and the growth agenda going forward. My expectation is that we will continue that, and growth is really the focus going forward. Yeah. I will pass by and check during the autumn. Of course you will. I'm still very curious to see this company. Yeah. Be a success as it Yeah. Already has started. Yeah. Yeah, that's for me also very important. Just, I want to say that. From a board perspective, we have already said that, but we are very happy with how Lars-Inge has initiated and created and driven the company until this point. Our expectation is that we, Gapwaves will continue to be successful, but it's also a team effort like Lars-Inge mentioned already. So far there's a very strong record for the company, of course. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you very much.