Alumni board in Finland
Get to know the people that bring you the Henley alumni community experience throughout the year. Feel free to reach out to them for more information, suggestions and feedback.
Alumni board member profiles
Michaela Ramm-Schmidt (Chair of Board)
WhyCo
Michaela Ramm-Schmidt is an entrepreneur at her own company WhyCo helping companies and investors build responsible businesses. Responsibility, sustainability and systems change are Michaela’s core expertise areas, and she has also worked with communications, policymaking, multi-stakeholder cooperation and HR. Michaela holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from the University of Helsinki, an Executive MBA from Henley Business School and a Diploma in Responsible Business from Aalto University Executive Education. She currently does the Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching at Henley. Michaela has worked as an attorney, lobbyist, in-house counsel and managing director. By inspiring companies to discover the business benefits of sustainable practices, Michaela wants to help them tackle the major challenges of our time. Michaela is passionate about good leadership, regenerative business, communication and collaboration.
Marja Keso (Vice Chair of Board, Lead of Communications Team)
CRM-service
Marja Keso is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of CRM-service, a Finnish SaaS provider. She has extensive leadership experience in Finnish and global ICT organisations and a proven track record of finding talents and leading teams through mergers and changes. She has long experience as a member of management teams in both listed and private equity-owned corporations. Marja’s core expertise is sales and marketing, which she acquired while working in small businesses and global corporations. In addition, she has functional expertise in portfolio management, business development, and technical presales. She is enthusiastic about integrating the latest knowledge on sustainability into a profitably growing business. Marja holds a Bachelor of Business Information Technology, an Executive MBA from Henley Business School and a Certified Board Member diploma.
Carina Hedberg (Treasury)
Blastr Green Steel
Carina Hedberg is the Head of Business Development and Sustainability at Blastr Green Steel. Carina has been a Senior Sustainability Advisor in Greenstep and a partner in KPMG, and a team leader for hundreds of assignments worldwide that have been conducted with multinational teams. This has provided her with a deep professional experience in financial management, governance structures, sustainability, leadership (supported by Henley’s Executive Certificate in Leadership), organisational and business development, capacity assessments, strategies, quality and risk management. From 2013-2016 she was based in South Africa, leading a renewable energy initiative that supported over 200 companies through investments and business growth in 15 countries. Carina holds a Master’s in Economics from the University of Åbo Akademi, an Executive MBA from Henley Business School and a by the Finland Chamber of Commerce issued Certified Board member.
Minna Gröning (Secretary)
Parker Hannifin
Minna Gröning is a Head of Sales in an engineering company, Parker Hannifin, in North Europe. Minna is a successful leader in growing people and businesses in cross-cultural commercial organisations. Minna has a strong experience in strategy work in leadership teams in several large global corporates. She is experienced in M&A and has a track record of successfully integrating two large organisations. Minna has an entrepreneurial attitude and experience running her own business. Minna holds an Executive MBA from Henley Business School and a BSc in Biomedical Laboratory Science. She is passionate about DEI and researched Diversity and Inclusion during her dissertation as part of the EMBA program. Minna enjoys mentoring individuals and is currently acting as a mentor for Leadership Mentoring Circle
Jani Siimes (Lead of Events Team)
MSD Finland
Jani Siimes is a Business Unit Lead at MSD Finland, the Finnish affiliate of Merck & Co., one of the leading research-intensive biopharmaceutical companies. Jani has extensive experience in marketing and sales in the Finnish pharmaceutical industry and understanding of the Finnish healthcare domain. His experience in the industry includes marketing strategies, customer solutions, customer events, and driving the digitalisation of marketing practices. As a person, Jani is structured, enjoys planning and collaborating with diverse teams and is interested in leadership, ethical and responsible business and, in general, in developing operations. Jani holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, completed his MBA at Henley in September 2022 and is a member of the Pharma Industry Finland expert group for the Code of Ethics.
Minna Lindholm
Google Cloud
Minna Lindholm is a leader at Google Cloud and believes everyone on the planet should have access to the information and all the opportunities it brings, especially education, health and wellbeing. Work for Minna is always about a bigger purpose; making a difference and contributing to a planet is what deeply moves her. A seasoned leader in the technology, digital and entertainment industries, Minna is a passionate and energetic soul with a mission. She believes there has been no better time for game-changing innovation than today. She is an experienced business and people leader with over 20 years of experience leading international businesses and organisations. She has led high-performing teams across cloud and digital technologies, sustainability, consulting, and digital natives and has experience in creating game-changing business models, concepts and driving customer experience. Minna is M.Sc (Technology) from the University of Abo Akademi and an Executive MBA from Henley Business School.
Juhani Pajunen
Suomen Podcastmedia
Juhani Pajunen is the founder and CEO of Suomen Podcastmedia, Finland’s biggest podcast production company. The company was acquired by one of the world’s biggest podcast production studios, Podx Group, in March 2023. Having worked at PR agencies and the national news agency STT, he has over 20 years of experience in public relations. Juhani’s vision is to do the same in the Finnish podcast industry as it has been done in the game industry: to export creative Finnish storytelling to the world. He is active in industry associations, such as the Internet Advertising Bureau and has been a jury member in various PR and marketing competitions. Juhani is currently an EMBA student at Henley Business School.
Jussi Vallinkoski
Acta Consulting
Jussi Vallinkoski is a principal consultant and entrepreneur at Acta Consulting. For roughly the past decade, Jussi has worked in different leadership positions in several large core banking transformations in the Nordics. Altogether he has over 20 years of experience working as a consultant and as a leader in banks both in the Nordics and for a 1-year stint in Dubai. His core expertise areas are large transformations, target operating models and banking. Jussi is enthusiastic and interested in leadership and business agility, especially how these could be combined to help companies make the needed transformations into sustainably profitable companies of the future. Jussi holds an M.Sc in Engineering (Computer Science) from Helsinki University of Technology and an Executive MBA from Henley Business School.
Deputy board members
Kaisa Crowley
Marimekko
Kaisa is the Head of Digital Market Growth at Marimekko, a Finnish lifestyle design company. She has over 15 years of experience in the area of marketing, technology, data-driven communications, digitalisation and customer loyalty. She is passionate about continuous development and the possibilities of automation. Leading teams, coaching and helping others to reach success is especially rewarding to her. Kaisa holds a BBA in Marketing from the HAMK University of Applied Sciences and an Executive MBA from Henley Business School.
Mirkka Rautala
Live Nation Finland
Mirkka is a Director Development & Operations at Live Nation Finland. She graduated from Henley Business School with an MBA in 2017. Her roles in live entertainment have included sales, marketing, e-commerce and business development, and she possesses a comprehensive understanding of organisational performance. Her speciality is international project management and business process design. In her current role, she leads project related to CSR, sustainability, and DE&I and leads the operational development of Live Nation Finland, responsible for producing and marketing events.