Senior management
Chief Executive Officer
Höskuldur H. Ólafsson
Höskuldur was born in 1959. He was appointed CEO of Arion Bank in June 2010. Höskuldur is a shareholder of Arion Bank but no stock option agreements have been entered into with him.
Höskuldur joined the Bank from Valitor hf. where he had been CEO since 2006. Prior to that he worked at the Icelandic transportation company Eimskip hf. for 17 years and held a range of management positions, including that of deputy CEO. He has also served on the boards of directors of numerous companies and organizations in Iceland and abroad.
Höskuldur graduated with a cand. oecon. degree in business administration from the University of Iceland in 1987.
Organizational chart 2018
Executive committee
Business segments
Managing Director of Retail Banking
Ida Brá Benediktsdóttir
Ida Brá was born in 1976. Ida Brá was appointed managing director of Retail Banking in July 2017.
Ida Brá has worked for Arion Bank and its predecessor since 1999 when she joined the research department. She has held various positions within the Bank including head of a department within Treasury, head of Private Banking and head of Corporate Communications. Ida Brá was managing director of Investment Banking from 2016 to 2017. Ida Brá is the vice chairman of the Board of Directors of Vördur and has served on the board of numerous companies, including Ólafsfjördur savings bank, AFL – savings bank, Landfestar and HB Grandi hf.
Ida Brá graduated with a degree in business administration from the University of Iceland in 1999 and has a Master's in finance from the Erasmus Graduate School of Business in Rotterdam. She is also a certified stockbroker.
Managing Director of Investment Banking
Lýdur Thór Thorgeirsson
Lýdur was born in 1976. He was appointed managing director of Investment Banking in October 2017.
From 2010 to 2017 he worked for GAMMA Capital Management hf, first as a fund manager and from 2013 as managing director of alternative investments. Lydur worked for Kaupthing from 2009 to 2010, where he managed international corporate loans and equity positions. Prior to that he was at Arion Bank and its predecessor in the Corporate Finance division from 2007. Between 2000 and 2005 Lýdur worked for Íslandsbanki in leverage finance and risk management.
Lýdur has an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.Sc. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Iceland. He holds a stockbroker certification.
Managing Director of Asset Management
Margrét Sveinsdóttir
Margrét was born in 1960. She has been managing director of Asset Management since February 2009.
Between 2007 and 2009 she was head of financial institutions client relations at Glitnir. From 1990 to 2007 she was head of securities brokerage and advisory at Íslandsbanki Securities Ltd, later the asset management division of Glitnir. Between 1985 and 1988 she worked in the credit division of the Industrial Bank of Iceland. Margrét has served on a number of boards of directors, including: The Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund on behalf of SFF, Okkar Life Insurance and several funds in Luxembourg.
Margrét graduated with an MBA from Babson College in Massachusetts in 1990 and a Cand. oecon. degree in business administration from the University of Iceland in 1986. She is also a certified stockbroker.
Managing Director of Corporate Banking
Rúnar Magni Jónsson
Rúnar Magni Jónsson was born in 1976. Rúnar was appointed managing director of Corporate Banking at Arion Bank in October 2018.
Rúnar Magni has been at the Bank and its predecessors for 15 years, mainly in Corporate Banking. He began as a securities broker at Kaupthing from 2000 to 2002 and then became an account manager in Corporate Banking in 2005. Rúnar then took over as head of department within Corporate Banking in 2014.
Rúnar Magni has an MSc in international marketing and management (IMM) from the Copenhagen Business School and a degree in business administration from the University of Iceland. He is also a certified stockbroker.
Support units
Managing Director of Legal Division
Jónína S. Lárusdóttir
Jónína was born in 1970. She was appointed managing director of the Legal division in November 2010.
She was permanent secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, from 2007 to 2010. She was appointed director of the general office of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in 2004 and remained there until 2007. Between 2000 and 2004 she was a specialist in the financial markets department at the Ministry of Commerce. Jónína worked for the A&P law firm from 1996 to 1999. She has served on and chaired numerous committees, including on behalf of the Prime Minister’s Office, and has worked as a lecturer in several institutions, such as the faculty of law of the University of Iceland. She was chairman of the Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund in 2003 and 2004. Jónína is now a member of the board of Valitor hf.
Jónína gained a master’s from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2000. She graduated from the faculty of law at the University of Iceland in 1996 and qualified as a district court attorney the following year.
Managing Director of Information Technology
Rakel Óttarsdóttir
Rakel was born in 1973. She was appointed managing director of Information Technology in July 2016.
In December 2015 Rakel took over the position of chief operating officer on a temporary basis after having been managing director of Corporate Development and Marketing since 2011. Rakel was head of Arion Bank’s Project Office from 2010 to 2011. She was an account manager in the IT division of Arion Bank and its predecessor between 2005 and 2010. Rakel previously worked as a software designer and later as head of development at TM Software – Libra, a financial services software company.
Rakel graduated with an MBA from Duke University in North Carolina in 2002 and a BSc in computer science from the University of Iceland in 1997.
Chief Financial Officer
Stefán Pétursson
Stefán was born in 1963. He was appointed chief financial officer at Arion Bank in August 2010.
Stefán joined Landsvirkjun in 1991, first as head of funding and from 1995 as treasurer. He became chief financial officer of Landsvirkjun in 2002 and sat on the company’s negotiation committee with energy intense industry. While on leave from Landsvirkjun in 2008 he served as the CEO of the investment company HydroKraft Invest hf. From 1986 to 1989 Stefán worked as head of administration at the Icelandic Fisheries Laboratories Institute. Stefán has held a number of directorship positions and other positions of responsibility in recent years. He is currently a member of the board of Valitor hf. and the board of the Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund on behalf of SFF.
Stefán graduated with an MBA from Babson College in Massachusetts in 1991 and a cand. oecon. degree from the faculty of business of the University of Iceland in 1986.
Head of Investor Relations
Sture Stölen
Born in 1967, Sture was appointed as the Head of Investor Relations in February 2017.
Sture served as the head of investor relations at SAS AB in Sweden from 2001 to 2013. From 1993 to 2001, Sture held various positions in treasury and finance in SAS AB. Since 2013, Sture has been senior adviser and partner at Wildeco Ekonomisk Information AB in Sweden, a position he currently holds. Sture was a board member of Forex Bank AB in Sweden from 2013-2014. He has served as head of investor relations in TF Bank AB (publ) since January 2016.
Sture holds an MSc in finance from the Norwegian School of Business in Oslo, Norway from 1993.
Internal control
Data Protection Officer
Erla Thurídur Pétursdóttir
Erla was born in 1974. She is Arion Bank’s first Data Protection Officer and joined the Bank in June 2018.
Erla was chief legal officer of Valitor from 2007 to 2017. Prior to that that she was in the tax and legal division at KPMG for two years and at the Ministry of Finance between 2001 and 2004.
Erla graduated with a degree in a law from the University of Iceland in 1999, qualified as a district court attorney in 2004 and completed a masters in law from the University of Miami in 2005.
Chief Risk Officer
Dr. Gísli S. Óttarsson
Gísli was born in 1963. He was appointed Chief Risk Officer of Arion Bank in April 2009.
From 2006 to 2008 he was head of research and development in Kaupthing Bank’s risk management division. From 2001 to 2006 he was a software designer and advisor for the engineering software company MSC.Software in the United States. From 1994 to 2001 Gísli worked for Mechanical Dynamics Inc. in the US as a software architect and development manager for the multibody dynamics and motion analysis software ADAMS.
Gísli was awarded a PhD in mechanical engineering in 1994 and an MSc in applied mechanics in 1989, both from the University of Michigan. Gísli received a BSc in civil engineering from the University of Iceland in 1986. He is also a certified stockbroker.
Compliance Officer
Hákon Már Pétursson
Hákon was born in 1981. He was appointed Compliance Officer of Arion Bank in April 2011.
From 2009 to 2011 Hákon worked for Kvasir Legal as a specialist in financial services and financial restructuring. Between 2006 and 2009 Hákon worked as a specialist in the securities market division at the Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland (FME). During this time he was the FME’s representative on various expert groups, including the Takeover Directive expert group and the MiFID expert group at the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR). He was also a guest lecturer at the University of Reykjavík and Reykjavík University.
He graduated from the faculty of law at the University of Iceland in 2007. He is also a certified stockbroker and holds an international advanced certificate in anti-money laundering.
Customers' Ombudsman
Helgi G. Björnsson
Helgi was born in 1961. He was appointed Customers' Ombudsman of Arion Bank in April 2012.
He worked in the Customers' Ombudsman department as a specialist from 2010 to 2012. Helgi was the branch manager at Búnadarbanki Íslands and then Kaupthing Bank, in Grafarvogur, Reykjavík from 1999 to 2010, and he was deputy branch manager at Búnadarbanki from 1993 to 1999. Between 1989 and 1993 Helgi worked for the Director of Tax Investigations and also advised on accounting for companies in NE Iceland. From 1987 to 1989 Helgi worked at Bifröst University in Iceland, teaching accounting, production management and human resource management.
Helgi graduated with a diploma in industrial technology from the Technical College of Iceland (now Reykjavík University) in 1987
Chief Audit Executive
Lilja Steinthórsdóttir
Lilja was born in 1949. She became Arion Bank’s Chief Audit Executive in October 2008 and served until the end of 2018.
Lilja was chief audit executive at Kaupthing Bank from 2006 to 2008. Prior to joining the Bank she was the chief auditor at the Central Bank of Iceland for eight years. In 1986 she set up an accounting firm in Akureyri which she managed for 13 years. She served on the audit committee of the Icelandic Banks’ Data Centre from 1998 to 2010, first on behalf of the Central Bank and then Arion Bank.
Lilja gained an MBA from the University of Edinburgh in 1998. She qualified as a chartered accountant in 1984 and graduated with a cand. oecon. degree in business administration from the University of Iceland in 1980.