Greater Stockholm Metropolitan Area
Ilse van der Haar is Chief Legal Officer at Sinch and a senior legal executive with more than two decades of international experience across technology, telecom, and highly regulated industries. As a member of the company’s Global Leadership Team, she leads Sinch’s global legal and compliance strategy while supporting the company’s continued growth as a leading cloud communications platform. She oversees a global team of 35 legal and compliance professionals, guiding the organization through complex regulatory environments while enabling fast-moving commercial innovation. Known for her commercially minded approach to legal leadership, Ilse partners closely with business leaders to help scale products, enter new markets, and structure strategic partnerships. She believes modern legal teams should not only protect the business but actively accelerate it—translating complex legal frameworks into pragmatic solutions that support growth, customer trust, and long-term value creation. Before becoming CLO, Ilse held leadership positions in legal, compliance, and regulatory affairs across major telecom and logistics organizations, building and transforming legal functions in complex global environments. With a PhD in Law and a leadership style grounded in clarity, collaboration, and business impact, Ilse is passionate about developing high-performing global legal teams. She focuses on building legal functions that combine deep legal expertise with commercial insight, enabling leadership to weigh risk against opportunity and make informed, high-impact business decisions
Part of the Global Leadership Team
In addition to the role of Head of Compliance, responsible for the day to day management of the Data Privacy team at PostNord. Moved the Group privacy team from the Information Security department into the Group Legal team. Built a new governance structure consisting of regional DPOs and Data privacy coordinators across the Group. Created new governance documents and corresponding procedures and processes to increase compliance with GDPR.
Responsible for setting up the Group compliance function at PostNord, a Nordic company with around 28.000 employees. Created and executed on the Annual Compliance Wheel, covering all governance areas relevant for PN, delivering compliance status reports to the Audit Committee and performing annual risk analyses of all governance documents. Delegated owner of the Code of Conduct. Specific compliance programs covered competition law, privacy, trade sanctions and anti corruption.
Responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of both the regulatory strategy and the CR strategy (including sustainability reporting) of the Tele2 Group. Responsible for regulatory approvals of larger transactions. Functional reports in all countries, one direct report in Sweden. Successfully managed several high-profile merger approval processes before the European Commission: -Swedish transaction Tele2/ComHem – cleared in Phase 1 -Dutch transaction T-Mobile Netherlands/Tele2 Netherlands - unconditionally cleared in Phase 2 -Member of Tele2's crisis team following the dawnraid of Tele2 Group office by the European Commission on suspicion of cartel behaviour in the Swedish market (investigation closed October 2018) -Restructured Tele2's CR strategy in cooperation with the Tele2 AB Board and LT by revisiting our focus areas, setting clear targets and improving coordination cross-functions, leading to i) a measurable improvement in external ESG ratings (MSCI, Sustainalytics, ISS-oekom, Equileap) and ii) increased internal awareness -Chaired the biannual Control and Compliance Committee for Tele2 Kazakhstan, responsible for tracking and monitoring compliance with the Tele2 (Business Partner) Code of Conduct
Responsible for the overall regulatory strategy of the Tele2 Group and the group external relations in the Tele2 footprint. Implementing strategies internally to mitigate business risks and enhance opportunities arising from regulation. Functional reports in all countries. -Developed a successful regulatory strategy for the Tele2 Group (consolidation, roaming, net neutrality, privacy, IoT), specifically tailored to the commercial needs of the business. -Set and executed the public policy agenda for the Tele2 Group. Developed new policy relationships in Brussels, and supported the Group CEO in public appearances (e.g. meetings with European Commissioners and local government officials) -Lead and managed the group-wide commercial project on the introduction of Roam like at home regulation; an intensive project rolling out the requirements of European regulation to eight countries, demanding large changes to the existing business portfolios in order to become and remain compliant -Developed and taught a company-wide introduction to competition law training -Managed the regulatory approval process for the JV between Tele2 Kazakhstan and Altel