In this paper the challenges imposed on corporate governance of water services in Italy and Sweden are analyzed and compared. From the comparative analysis we notice that with externalization of services more stakeholders become involved in the provision of the services. These stakeholders have common as well as divergent interests and the challenges thus become to find an alignment of interest among stakeholders in order to secure a sustainable provision of the services. The comparative analysis indicate that such alignment is especially difficult when stakeholders have heterogeneous background (public and private sector).