Svante Adde studied at the Stockholm School of Economics to take his BA degree in 1979. He joined Citibank in Stockholm that year as an account officer and moved with Citicorp to London in 1983 to work in M&A and corporate finance. Svante joined Lazard Brothers in London in 1989 to head up their Nordic business which he led until 2003 as a managing director/partner. During this period Lazard acquired its Stockholm office for which Svante was the managing director until 2003. Since 2003 he has worked as CFO of Ahlstrom in Helsinki, managing director of Compass Advisers, and from 2007 until 2013 was the managing director and a senior adviser of Pöyry Capital.