Stockholm-based Cemvision, the Swedish producer of near-zero-emission cement, has appointed co-founder and CTO Claes Kollberg as CEO, effective October 1. A former cement plant manager with 18 years in cement production, Kollberg takes the helm as the company shifts its focus to building its first plant. He succeeds Oscar Hållén, who has led the company since March 2023 and will take Kollberg’s seat on the board.
The Handover
Under Hållén’s leadership, Cemvision moved from R&D to commercialization. The company has signed commercial agreements, including capacity reservations and joint development agreements, with names such as Vattenfall, Linotol, Mannok, Storex, and S:t Eriks. It has raised more than €20 million across its financing rounds, alongside numerous grants, secured a debt facility for its first plant, selected a site, brought vendor procurement to near completion, and built a professional management team and project organization ready to execute.
With that platform in place, Hållén and Kollberg initiated the handover together, with the support of the board and the company’s investors, so that the person responsible for delivering the plant leads the company through that phase. Hållén remains in an operational role during the transition before moving to the board. Kollberg continues as CTO alongside the CEO role, and there are no other changes to the management team or the board.
Michael Wolf, Chairperson of Cemvision’s board, said: “Oscar came to Cemvision to turn a technology into a company. He delivered the commercial agreements, the financing rounds, and the management team that is about to make the first plant possible, and he had the judgment to hand over at the point where the job changes — leadership like that is what we want on the board. Claes has spent his career inside cement plants; he is the right person to build ours.”
Kollberg described the road ahead: “We’ve spent years proving that the technology works and preparing to scale. Now it’s about moving to industrial-scale production. I’ve stood on cement plant floors for most of my career, and I know what it takes to get one from drawing board to full production. That’s the job ahead of us.”
Hållén reflected on the decision: “I joined Cemvision because I believed in Claes and Paul, and I came to build the company around their technology. That company now exists. The plant is the next chapter, and it is Claes’s to lead — we chose this moment together. I will finish what I own and then move to the board. I want to be there when that plant runs.”
The New CEO
Kollberg co-founded Cemvision with Paul Sandberg in 2019 and has served as CTO since the company’s founding, leading development of its cement technology. He brings 18 years of cement production experience in Africa and Sweden, including overseeing the construction of new cement plants and retrofitting existing ones. He has held operational and plant-management roles at Cementa and Twiga Cement, as well as prior work on the HYBRIT fossil-free steel initiative. He holds an MSc in Mechanical Engineering (Energy Technology) from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and was named a Breakthrough Energy Fellow in 2022.
