Alumni board in Finland

Sari Grenman (Head of Board)

Ilmarinen

Sari Grenman is currently Chief Compliance Officer at Ilmarinen, Finland’s biggest pension insurer. Sari has over 20 years of professional experience from finance and banking gained while working as legal counsel, compliance officer and risk specialist in consultancy, private equity as well as banking and insurance business. She holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Helsinki and a Master of Business Administration degree from Henley Business School. She has also studied international and EEC law in the UK as part of her law studies and done an attorney-at-law exam while she worked at one of the biggest Attorneys-at-Law firm in Finland. Sari values lifelong learning.

Pia Friberg

Fiskars Group

Pia is currently Director, Employee Communications at Fiskars Group. Pia is an experienced communications professional with an extensive background in corporate communications, mainly in large, stock listed companies. Pia’s experience stretches over both internal and external communications. Transparent, authentic and courageous corporate communication is what drives Pia at her work and she has a special interest in corporate culture and its impact. She gets energy from succeeding together as well as self-development. Pia is M.Sc. Econ. (Aalto University, prev. Helsinki School of Economics) and has the Henley Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching (PCEC).

Carina Hedberg

Greenstep

Carina Hedberg joined Greenstep’s sustainability team as a Senior Advisor in 2022. At Greenstep Carina is extensively supporting companies and investors in all their sustainability work from compliance to purposeful business growth. Carina has been a partner in KPMG and a team leader for hundreds of assignments worldwide that have been conducted with multinational teams. This has provided her a deep professional experience in financial management, governance structures, leadership, organizational and business development as well as capacity assessments, strategies, quality and risk management. In 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 and an Executive MBA from Henley Business School.

Marja Keso

CRM-service

Marja Keso is the Chief Operating Officer of CRM-service, a Finnish software and service 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-driven marketing, which she acquired while working in small businesses and global corporations. In addition, she has functional expertise in sales and 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, MBA degree from Henley Business School (2022) and a Certified Board Member diploma.

Minna Lindholm

Google

Work for Minna is always about a bigger purpose; making a difference and a contribution to a planet is what deeply moves her. She works as 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. A seasoned leader of 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 in leading international business and organisations. She has led high performing teams across cloud and digital technologies, sustainability, consulting, and digital natives and has experiences in creating game changing business models, concepts and  driving customer experience. Minna is M.Sc (Technology) from the University of Abo Akademi and Executive MBA from Henley Business School.

Michaela Ramm-Schmidt

WhyCo

Michaela Ramm-Schmidt is an entrepreneur at her own company WhyCo. She also works part-time as senior expert (corporate relations) at the environmental NGO Baltic Sea Action Group. Responsible business, sustainability and systems change are Michaela’s core expertise areas, and she has also worked with communications, policymaking and HR. Michaela holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from the University of Helsinki, an Executive MBA degree from Henley Business School and a Diploma in Responsible Business from Aalto University Executive Education. Michaela has worked as an attorney, lobbyist, inhouse counsel and managing director. By inspiring companies to discover the business benefits of sustainable practices, Michaela wants to help them tackle major challenges of our time. Michaela is passionate about good leadership, communication and collaboration.

Mirkka Rautala

Live Nation Entertainment

Mirkka Rautala currently works at Live Nation Entertainment Finland as Head of Development. She is gutsy, driven, and focused on holistic strategy execution by leveraging people, technology, experiences, and content and is passionate about organizational performance and learning. Her roles in live entertainment have included sales, marketing, e-commerce and business development and she possesses a comprehensive understanding of organizational performance metrics. Her specialty is international project management and business process design. She thrives working in multicultural environments and with people across all functions and is a a big picture thinker with a passion for doing things right and getting everyone involved.

Roope Tähkä

Roope is an experienced marketing, communications and business development professional with versatile experience from various industries. Roope has held key positions within stock listed, society owned and start-up companies as well as in several non-profit organisations. Roope comes from a family heritage of two generations of psychiatrists and regardless of choosing a different professional path, he is always interested to understand the root-causes of people’s actions. Outside of work Roope is passionate about basketball and he is a huge fan of the Finnish basketball national team “Wolfpack”. Roope graduated from Henley Executive MBA in 2020.

Juhani Pajunen

Suomen Podcastmedia

Juhani Pajunen is the founder and CEO of Suomen Podcastmedia, Finland’s biggest podcast production company. Having worked at PR agencies and the national news agency STT, he has over 20 years of experience in public relations. He is active in industry associations, such as the Internet Advertising Bureau and has been a member of the jury in various PR and marketing competitions. Juhani is currently an EMBA student at Henley Business School.

Vesa Silfver

Motiva

Vesa Silfver is the CEO at Motiva Ltd, the government-owned sustainable development company. He has 15 years experience in global consulting companies, and he has lead Health and Public Sector consulting at Accenture Finland. Vesa has extensive experience in supporting organizations in their evolution to the digital age. Vesa has a broad understanding of sustainable development agenda both within public sector and across industries. He is a member of Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development. Vesa has years of experience as part of corporate management teams and he is a Certified Board Member. Vesa holds M. Sc. Engineering from Tampere University of Technology and he plans to graduate from Henley Business School Executive MBA during 2021.