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The national outlook has recovered 18 points since April, the household view far less

Most of the improvement since April's low has come from how consumers see Finland. The national outlook accounts for about 60 per cent of the indicator's 7.6-point rise. Consumers' view of their own past year has moved far less.

Expectations for Finland's economy over the next 12 months improved from a balance of 23.2 below zero in April to 4.7 below zero in September, which is on its long-term average level. Between March 2022 and August 2026, the same measure averaged 16.9 below zero.

Households' assessment of their own finances tells a different story. The balance for own economy now stood at 1.9 below zero in September, against an average of 4.9 above zero in the five and a half years before March 2022. Expectations for one's own economy in 12 months fell to 5.8 from 8.1 in August, short of the pre-2022 average of 9.8. Twenty-eight per cent of consumers said their finances were worse than a year earlier, while 25 per cent said better.

Consumers' views concerning their own and Finland's economy

2016M09–2026M09

The gap follows income, not prices

Labour Institute for Economic Research Labore estimates that purchasing power in the bottom income decile will decline by 3.5 per cent this year, while the top decile gains 2.2 per cent. Between 2023 and 2026, the difference in purchasing power growth between the two groups will exceed 16 percentage points, with renters and single parents facing the weakest outlook. Senior researcher Milla Nyyssölä attributes the split to "different income trajectories" rather than prices.

Labore describes this as unusual by historical standards. Even in the growth years after Finland's 1990s recession, when income growth varied widely between groups, purchasing power in the lowest decile did not fall.

The confidence survey shows the same fault line. Upper-level salaried employees posted a confidence reading of 1.1 above zero in September, while the unemployed stood at 13.1 below zero and pensioners at 11.5 below zero. Greater Helsinki recorded 2.4 below zero and Eastern Finland 10.7 below zero. Women's reading of 7.4 below zero remained well under men's 2.4 below zero.

Job security is part of the explanation. Among employed consumers, 27 per cent felt their personal risk of unemployment or lay-off had increased, and only 5 per cent felt it had lessened (Statistics Finland). Price pressure has not eased either: consumers estimated inflation at 4.9 per cent over the past year and expect 4.1 per cent over the next.

Consumer confidence indicator (CCI, A1)

2016M09–2026M09

The national outlook has recovered 18 points since April, the household view far less

Consumers' views concerning their own and Finland's economy

2016M09–2026M09

Source · Company announcements — Helsinki Stock Exchange listed companies, Q1 2026

The gap follows income, not prices

Market Signals

Netum rebuilds its top team for a smaller, sharper business

Oct 13, 2026

The centre holds steady while every business area director starts a new role

Chief Executive Repe Harmanen, CFO Peter Ahlskog, HR and Marketing Director Liina Kangas and Sales Director Sami Rantanen keep their roles.

Revenue fell EUR 6.2 million in a year. The management layer did not.

The centre holds steady while every business area director starts a new role

Chief Executive Repe Harmanen, CFO Peter Ahlskog, HR and Marketing Director Liina Kangas and Sales Director Sami Rantanen keep their roles.

Revenue fell EUR 6.2 million in a year. The management layer did not.

Market Signals

Rainmaker buys Inhouse Group to close its B2B gap ahead of a possible First North listing

Oct 7, 2026

Rainmaker buys Inhouse to close the gap on its EUR 7 million B2B target

Inhouse follows two acquisitions in the first half of 2026

Rainmaker buys Inhouse to close the gap on its EUR 7 million B2B target

Inhouse follows two acquisitions in the first half of 2026

Market Signals

Nightingale Health's USD 6.5 million brain health deal lands as it targets EUR 10 million in revenue

Oct 1, 2026

CEO and founder Teemu Suna said the company believes the deal will produce the world's largest brain health-focused proteomics study on a single research cohort.

The contract puts Nightingale's move into proteomics to work

CEO and founder Teemu Suna said the company believes the deal will produce the world's largest brain health-focused proteomics study on a single research cohort.

The contract puts Nightingale's move into proteomics to work

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Leadership moves

Leadership Moves

Oma Savings Bank CEO Karri Alameri steps down weeks after S-Bank takes 96% control

Oct 14, 2026

Alameri was hired in 2024 to steady the bank after a turbulent year.

At the time, Alameri said the news flow around OmaSp had been exceptionally challenging in recent months, and that the aim was to “bring the bank back to a good growth and earnings track”.

The exit follows S-Bank’s takeover of the bank

After settling the offer, S-Bank owned 96.40% of OmaSp’s shares and votes on 7 October. OmaSp now describes itself as part of S-Bank Group.

S&P raised its long-term rating on the bank to BBB+ from BBB, calling it a highly strategic subsidiary that would benefit from group support if needed.

The January strategy now sits inside a larger group

Alameri leaves with guidance cut

S-Bank will replace most of the board on the day Alameri steps down

Leadership Moves

Honkarakenne puts Sanna Hovila on its executive group as new CEO rewrites strategy

Oct 12, 2026

Honkarakenne has appointed HR Director Sanna Hovila as Vice President, People and Communications and a member of the Executive Group from 9 October 2026. She reports to President and CEO Magnus Hindström, and the Executive Group now has six members.

“Sanna has strong expertise and insight in personnel matters and in developing our culture. As a member of the Executive Group, she will ensure that the employee perspective is included in decisions from the very beginning and that they are communicated clearly,” said Magnus Hindström, President and CEO.

Hindström brings people and communications to the top table two months into the job

Hindström took over on 3 August, succeeding Marko Saarelainen, who moved to lead subsidiary Honka Japan. He joined from Metsä Wood, where he was vice president for Kerto LVL sales. Hovila has been HR Director at Honkarakenne since 2021 and previously worked at Atria.

The appointment follows a profit warning and an unfinished strategy update

In August, Honkarakenne dropped its numerical 2026 guidance of EUR 42 to 45 million in net sales and now only expects net sales and operating profit to exceed 2025 levels. It cited weaker export orders and a profitability programme that missed its early-year targets. First-half net sales fell 5% to EUR 15.8 million and operational EBIT, excluding non-recurring items, was EUR -2.2 million, while the order book rose 28% to EUR 33.6 million.

“We are currently updating our strategy, and implementing it requires clear decisions, openness about the rationale and consistent action. The decisions affect the everyday work of every employee, which is why human resources management and communications belong in the Executive Group,” comments Magnus Hindström, President and CEO.

Alongside the strategy update, Hindström is focusing on adjusting the cost structure and strengthening cash flow. Decisions of that kind reach every employee, which is why the company wants the people's perspective in the room when they are made.

“Change will only succeed if each of us knows where we are heading and why, and that is what I will focus on first,” says Sanna Hovila.

Leadership Moves

Alma Media folds HR into communications and trims its management team to nine

Oct 8, 2026

Alma Media will combine its Human Resources and Corporate Communications functions under Elina Kukkonen, currently Executive Vice President, Communications and Brand. Merja Ristilä, responsible for HR, leaves the Group Management Team on 31 October as her position is discontinued. From 1 November, the team has nine members.

HR is not the first function Alma has folded into another this year

In March, Alma said General Counsel Mikko Korttila will retire in early 2027 after holding the role since 2007, and that the corporate planning function under him will move to Group Finance before year-end. Senior legal counsel Tiina Kerttula succeeds him on 1 January 2027.

“By combining our Human Resources and Communications functions, we are streamlining our organization and strengthening our ability to execute our strategy,” says Kai Telanne, President and CEO of Alma Media

Alma is streamlining from a position of rising profit

First-half revenue grew 4.9% to EUR 171.0 million, and adjusted operating profit rose 16.9% to EUR 44.8 million. In the second quarter alone, revenue rose 5.0% to EUR 87.9 million, and adjusted operating profit rose 15.6% to EUR 24.4 million, or 27.7% of revenue. All business segments improved their results. The leaner management team is an efficiency move, not a repair job.

Leadership Moves

Boreo names Lassi Simola CFO, ending nearly a year of a split finance function

Oct 6, 2026

Boreo has appointed Lassi Simola, currently Workout and Restructuring Executive at Nordea, as Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Group Management Team. He starts no later than 4 January 2027, ending an interim arrangement that has divided the finance role between two people since February.

Boreo brings back a CFO after deciding in February to manage without one

In December 2025, Boreo announced that CFO Jesse Petäjä would step down and said it had started recruiting a successor. In February 2026, it changed course and decided not to appoint a CFO for the time being. Rafael Osmanov became Head of M&A and Financing, and Vice President Finance Sami Hanerva took over financial reporting.

Once Simola starts, Hanerva will report to him in his current role. Osmanov will support the onboarding, and his contract ends by the end of March 2027.

The new CFO and the CEO both come from private equity and consulting dealmaking

Simola has more than 15 years in finance, over 10 of them in private equity, and is a CFA charterholder. Tuomas Kahri, CEO since 1 April 2026, was previously a partner at McKinsey & Company and Intera Partners. The hire is the first CFO appointment under Kahri.

“Lassi brings to Boreo strong expertise in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance. He has extensive experience working with small and medium-sized companies and possesses an excellent understanding of the challenges and opportunities these businesses face,” says Tuomas Kahri, CEO of Boreo, in the press release.

Boreo has spent 2026 preparing its balance sheet for acquisitions

Boreo grew 2025 net sales by 14% to EUR 153.3 million and operational EBIT by 17% to EUR 8.0 million, and its board proposed no dividend to strengthen the financial position. The April 2026 AGM approved that proposal. First-half 2026 net sales rose 14% to EUR 84.6 million, operational EBIT rose 21% to EUR 4.3 million, and operating cash flow improved to EUR 3.7 million.

The portfolio is moving in both directions. In July, subsidiary Floby Nya Bilverkstad sold its vehicle painting business Lackmästar'n. On 1 October, Boreo bought technical textiles maker TEXpro for an enterprise value of EUR 1.6 million, paid from existing cash.

“With its strengthened financial position and renewed focus on acquisitions, I believe the company is well positioned to pursue its growth strategy,” says Lassi Simola.

TEXpro, with EUR 1.7 million in net sales, shows the scale of Boreo's deals so far this year. A CFO hired for his acquisition record suggests the board expects that scale to grow.

Leadership Moves

Oma Savings Bank CEO Karri Alameri steps down weeks after S-Bank takes 96% control

Oct 14, 2026

Alameri was hired in 2024 to steady the bank after a turbulent year.

At the time, Alameri said the news flow around OmaSp had been exceptionally challenging in recent months, and that the aim was to “bring the bank back to a good growth and earnings track”.

The exit follows S-Bank’s takeover of the bank

After settling the offer, S-Bank owned 96.40% of OmaSp’s shares and votes on 7 October. OmaSp now describes itself as part of S-Bank Group.

S&P raised its long-term rating on the bank to BBB+ from BBB, calling it a highly strategic subsidiary that would benefit from group support if needed.

The January strategy now sits inside a larger group

Alameri leaves with guidance cut

S-Bank will replace most of the board on the day Alameri steps down

Leadership Moves

Honkarakenne puts Sanna Hovila on its executive group as new CEO rewrites strategy

Oct 12, 2026

Hindström brings people and communications to the top table two months into the job

The appointment follows a profit warning and an unfinished strategy update

“Change will only succeed if each of us knows where we are heading and why, and that is what I will focus on first,” says Sanna Hovila.

Leadership Moves

Alma Media folds HR into communications and trims its management team to nine

Oct 8, 2026

HR is not the first function Alma has folded into another this year

Alma is streamlining from a position of rising profit

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Insider interviews

Commercial partnership

Vivicta

Insider interviews

A new item for the board agenda: seven in ten are investing, three in ten are in control

Sep 30, 2026

Digital sovereignty is moving off the IT compliance list and onto the board's risk agenda. Vivicta's Nordic Digital Sovereignty Survey 2026, published on 22 September, finds that seven in ten organisations expect to increase their sovereignty investment over the next twelve months, while fewer than three in ten are confident they control their critical data.

Not long ago, the CIO of a large Swedish company told Vivicta's CEO Satu Kiiskinen what his single highest priority was. It was knowing where the company's business-critical data actually sits. He knew a moment would come when the executive team and the board would ask him that question, and he wanted the answer ready.

The question stopped being technical

Digital sovereignty means an organisation's ability to retain control and decision-making authority over its critical data, systems and operational continuity, including when the operating environment changes.

The definition might sound like an IT matter. According to Kiiskinen, that is precisely the problem. In executive teams and boardrooms the subject is still treated too often as a compliance and technology question. Her own view is different: this is first and foremost about business continuity, risk management and the capacity to keep operating when conditions shift.

The gap is not in the budget

The survey, run by Vivicta in collaboration with the research company Kairos Future, drew 320 senior decision-makers and key advisers in Finland, Sweden and Norway between June and July 2026. All worked in organisations employing more than 500 people.

The findings describe a subject that is recognised but not yet governed:

70 per cent expect sovereignty-related investment to increase over the next 12 months.
46 per cent have a formal, explicit sovereignty strategy.
29 per cent strongly believe they control their critical data to a sufficient standard.

This, Kiiskinen says, is the most interesting result in the dataset. The subject is recognised, it is discussed, and organisations are willing to put money behind it. The capability still does not match the ambition. A gap has opened between intent and execution.

For a board, that is a familiar situation in unfamiliar clothing: an investment decision is coming up on a matter that too often has no strategy, no named owner and no metric.

Finland invests most. Sweden is further ahead on strategy.

Seventy-four per cent of Finnish organisations plan to increase investment, more than in Norway (69 per cent) or Sweden (68 per cent). On strategy the order reverses: a formal sovereignty strategy exists at 53 per cent of Swedish organisations, 44 per cent of Finnish ones and 39 per cent of Norwegian ones.

On control of critical data, Finland leads the comparison at 35 per cent, with Sweden and Norway at 26 per cent. Finland is ahead of its Nordic peers, and still only one Finnish organisation in three strongly believes it has sufficient control of its critical data.

Sweden, Kiiskinen notes, put sovereignty on the table some time ago. The CIO in the opening example represents that stage: the question is no longer whether the subject matters, but whether the organisation can answer when asked.

The opportunity is competitiveness.

Kiiskinen does not frame the subject as a threat. She sees it primarily as an opportunity to strengthen an organisation's resilience and competitiveness, and, ultimately, shareholder value.

Artificial intelligence connects to this directly. When the AI conversation runs hot and business benefits are wanted quickly, control of data determines whether AI can be adopted in a governed way, with risks identified in advance rather than reconstructed afterwards. Twenty-seven per cent of respondents rank AI, data use and control of decision-making among their most important sovereignty priorities. Seventeen per cent see AI as a new obstacle to data control.

On the risk side, Kiiskinen names one above the others: excessive dependency on individual providers.

Respondents agree. Dependency on external service providers tops the entire list of obstacles at 28 per cent. Cost and the complexity of an organisation's own environment follow at 23 per cent each, vendor lock-in at 16 per cent, and the absence of a strategy, owner or governance model at 14 per cent.

Dependency is rarely anyone's decision. It accumulates. Each individual choice was defensible at the time, and the result is a structure no one designed. It becomes visible only when something has to change quickly.

Full control is not the goal

Kiiskinen is careful not to overstate what the survey shows.

Complete sovereignty across every system is neither realistic nor the point, Kiiskinen says. What matters is distinguishing what is business-critical from what is not. The organisations that find a sensible balance are the ones that find resilience when conditions change

The data supports her. Only 8 per cent of respondents consider standard or global cloud sufficient for all critical workloads, and exactly the same share require full national sovereignty with elevated security. Everyone else sits somewhere in between. Seventeen per cent have not assessed the question at all.

What the board should ask

Kiiskinen does not present this as an easy topic for a board. The natural route onto the agenda, she says, runs through the audit committee, as part of risk management and business continuity. That does not mean it stays there. The whole board needs to take an interest.

Five questions a board can put to management at its next meeting:

Do we share a view of which data is business-critical to us?
Which systems are business-critical, and do we understand the difference between the two?
Where does our business-critical data actually reside, and how is it governed?
Who has access to it?
To what extent are our data, systems and decision-making genuinely under our own control, and which part of our preparedness is an assumption rather than something tested?

None of these requires technical expertise to ask. On the evidence of this survey, many organisations would struggle to answer them.

Which leaves one question on the table, and it belongs to the board rather than to IT: are boards challenging management hard enough, before the next disruption reveals the real state of their readiness?

Insider interviews

Six CFO seats, one lesson: Finnair’s Pia Aaltonen-Forsell on what survives every crisis

Aug 5, 2026

Few Nordic finance leaders have seen as many industries from the CFO chair as Pia Aaltonen-Forsell. Forestry at Munksjö and Ahlstrom Munksjö. Steel at Outokumpu. Batteries at Northvolt. Aviation at Finnair. She chairs UPM’s Audit Committee, and by January she takes on her next role as CFO of Valmet.

Each industry has its own logic, its own cycles, its own shocks. Yet across all of them, Finnair CFO Aaltonen-Forsell says, the fundamentals that decide whether a company survives disruption barely change.

"We just have to accept the world as it is. There are surprises, there is volatility, and we have to build the way we think, the frameworks we use and the way we act around that," the financial leader of Finland’s flag carrier told Listeds in an exclusive interview.

Before joining Finnair as CFO in 2024, Aaltonen-Forsell held senior finance roles at Vacon, Munksjö, Ahlstrom Munksjö, Outokumpu and Northvolt. She also chairs UPM's Audit Committee and will become CFO of industrial technology supplier Valmet by next January. The experience has shown that resilience depends less on accurate forecasts than on preserving the flexibility to adapt.

Few companies have tested that idea as thoroughly as Finnair. Russia's closure of its airspace dismantled the airline's long-standing advantage on Europe-Asia routes almost overnight, forcing longer flight times and a fundamental rethink of its network. More recently, conflict in the Middle East triggered another wave of disruption as oil prices climbed and airlines adjusted operations.

Many carriers felt the impact immediately. Scandinavian Airlines canceled hundreds of flights because of higher fuel costs. Finnair largely avoided cancellations and fuel surcharges, helped by a fuel hedging strategy that had locked in much of its fuel costs before prices surged. At the same time, reduced capacity from several Middle Eastern airlines increased demand on long-haul routes to Asia, supporting a record comparable operating profit of €78.4 million in the second quarter and prompting Finnair to raise its revenue guidance for 2026.

For Aaltonen-Forsell, the lesson is not how Finnair handled one disruption but how it prepared for many.

Optionality is a strategy

Ask Aaltonen-Forsell what resilience means, and the seasoned CFO starts with the balance sheet.

"From my perspective, resilience means that you have a certain readiness through the structure of your balance sheet, your cash reserves, your factual understanding of the situation, your shared knowledge and your shared view of the situation."

Preparation, however, is only part of the equation. "Because things can change, part of resilience is having that optionality. Not just saying, 'Here's the only right way to do it,' but thinking upfront that there may be two different alternatives. Depending on how things go, we can go this way, or we can go that way."

Few industries feel geopolitical shocks as quickly as aviation. When the Strait of Hormuz closed in late February, global jet fuel prices nearly doubled within weeks, reaching $188 a barrel in April. They eased briefly before jumping almost 30% again in July as renewed tensions disrupted shipping. For the airline industry, the volatility is expected to add around $100 billion to fuel bills this year.

It is why Aaltonen-Forsell returns to the idea of optionality. Rather than betting on a single forecast, companies need enough financial and operational flexibility to change course as conditions shift.

A veteran finance executive, Pia Aaltonen-Forsell has held CFO roles at Finnair, Northvolt, Outokumpu, Ahlstrom-Munksjö, and Vacon, alongside board appointments at several listed companies. Image credit: Finnair

Managing risk without predicting it

Airlines take different approaches to fuel price risk. Some, including American Airlines, have largely abandoned fuel hedging. Most European network carriers continue to hedge, although to varying degrees.

Finnair follows the latter approach. The airline relies on a hedging policy, but Aaltonen-Forsell says it still requires a close understanding of market conditions.

"We have a hedging policy that really gives us direction. But we also need to have our feet on the ground and understand the market. In very volatile markets, it's not a thing that you just call the bank and say, 'I would like to do this.' You still need to be very informed about what's going on and choose the right moments."

The strategy proved its value this summer. By the end of the second quarter, Finnair had hedged roughly three-quarters of its expected fuel consumption for the second half of the year, reducing its exposure as prices rose.

That discipline matters because markets rarely move in predictable ways. "You need to have a certain framework for your thinking. It can't jump around day to day based on the latest news or tweet. Here's the basic plan. Then here are some things we could potentially change in different situations."

Rather than reacting to each headline, whether a breakthrough in peace talks or a fresh escalation, Finnair follows a defined framework while adjusting its decisions as conditions evolve.

Complexity rewards collaboration

The changing nature of risk has reshaped Aaltonen-Forsell's view of leadership. "I think today the world is so complex that it's very difficult to imagine that leadership could be a one-man or one-woman show where one person knows everything. Rather, there needs to be a group of people with different perspectives that can bring in different points of view."

The approach reflects research on collective intelligence, which suggests that how teams work together is a stronger predictor of group performance than the intelligence of individual members. At Finnair, that means bringing together finance, operations, network planning and commercial teams before decisions are made.

"What has worked and been really important for us has been strong collaboration between the different teams, having a shared view of the situation and then agreeing on the next steps," Aaltonen-Forsell says. "You actually need several views to really form the full view of what's going on."

Cash creates options

Working as both an executive and a board member has reinforced another principle. "I've learned to focus on the core of the topic and the fundamentals."

Across every industry she has worked in, one fundamental has never changed. "Cash. Cash is important for a business to run and develop in any industry. I always look at whether the business actually generates cash."

Profitability is essential, but it tells only part of the story. "A lot of people tend to focus on margins and profits, which is really good. That's the first step toward cash flow. But you really need to understand the cash flow itself."

Few industries make those trade-offs more visible than aviation. Airlines commit billions to aircraft that stay in service for decades, even as demand keeps shifting. Finnair's latest fleet renewal reflects that balancing act. The airline has ordered 18 Embraer E195-E2 aircraft, with options for 16 more and 12 purchase rights, while also planning to acquire up to 12 used Airbus A320/321ceo aircraft and lease six A320ceos. The mix is designed to support growth, replace older aircraft and give Finnair the flexibility to match capacity with changing demand.

Finnair is planning to renew its fleet with a mix of options, including Embraer E195 narrow-body jets. The image shows Embraer E190 jets used on short-haul European routes. Image credit: Finnair

For Aaltonen-Forsell, those decisions illustrate a broader principle about capital allocation. "The core of capital allocation is still that every euro has a purpose. But having seen very volatile situations, I've learned that you can have the best laid-out plan, but you still don't need to squeeze it to the last cent. You need to build a bit of optionality into those best laid-out plans."

Trust is built before it is needed

Besides optionality, trust is another idea Aaltonen-Forsell returns to. Trust, she says, also has to be built before it is needed.

"You have to put a lot of effort into building that trust. It doesn't come overnight. It comes from consistently doing what you say you will do and delivering what you promise."

Trust allows management teams and boards to make difficult decisions together. It cannot be built in the middle of a crisis.

As Aaltonen-Forsell prepares to join Valmet, the industry will change, but the challenge will not. Companies cannot predict every geopolitical shock, supply chain disruption or commodity price swing. What they can decide is how prepared they will be when the next one arrives.

Insider interviews

Panu Porkka, the quiet engine behind Verkkokauppa.com's loudest bets

Jun 19, 2026

Panu Porkka was named CEO of the Year at the Nordic Listed Leaders Gala. He talks about the people he leans on, what he looks for in a leader, and why he thinks Finland could use a little more Swedishness.

When Panu Porkka stepped up to accept CEO of the Year 2025 at the Nordic Listed Leaders Gala, he didn’t talk much about himself; instead, he talked about his wife and his team. It was a telling choice for a man who runs one of the most closely watched retailer companies on the Nasdaq Helsinki, and a useful place to start, because the way Porkka leads has a lot to do with the people he chooses to lean on.

"I would not be sane without my wife," he says. Across the phases of a demanding career, she has, in his telling, made his personal and professional growth possible. The work of a listed-company chief executive is, by his own account, sometimes very lonely.

What carries him through the dark stretches is having someone who reminds him he has done his best. With two children, aged five and seven, the ambition at home is shared too: to be as good a father as the hours allow. It is, he says, team play on both sides, and most of it sits in a place that never shows up in the work or on the newspaper pages.

A team that carries the weight

Ask what makes the job rewarding, and the answer is one word: team. Porkka describes a management group he rates as genuinely professional, working to a clear shared agenda and, crucially, carrying responsibility together rather than waiting to be told.

The phrase he keeps returning to is shared ownership. The overlap between people, the way one steps in where another leaves off, would not function, he says, without it.

Like-minded people, excited about the same thing, supporting each other and taking the weight: that is what turns a lonely job into a workable one.

It is also the lens through which he reads talent. Asked what he looks for, Porkka does not hesitate. Attitude is, by a distance, the most important quality: the drive to take hold of a problem and solve it, the instinct to say "I will handle that," the ability to get things done and bring people along.

Curiosity is the second component, a genuine appetite to learn, to stay open, to ask the other person to tell you more, and to want to understand not just what they think but why. Over 25 years, he has come to trust those two signals above almost anything on a CV.

The German lesson

Much of how Porkka works was shaped in Germany. Porkka spent around eight years with Lidl, much of it in Finland and later in Germany, where he steered international sales for Northern Europe and later ran Swiss operations as chief operating officer, including a market opening there.

Germany was never foreign to him: he attended the German School of Helsinki, the language and culture are familiar, and the country is something of a second home.

The management culture left a mark. German business, as he describes it, is matter-of-fact, with the substance of the task firmly in the foreground. It prizes anticipation and planning, treats chance as something to be designed out, and rewards working out what you are trying to achieve before you set off to measure it.

After Lidl, Porkka spent four years at Tokmanni, after which he made a move into specialty retail as chief executive of the Finnish bookshop chain Suomalainen Kirjakauppa.

No hundred-day plan

Porkka did not arrive at Verkkokauppa.com with a 100-day checklist. He joined the board in April 2017 and became CEO in March 2018, succeeding founder Samuli Seppälä, who had led the company for 26 years and built it from a basement startup into one of Finland's most recognizable retail brands before moving to the board.

There was no formal brief beyond the obvious one: growth had begun to slow, and the company needed to find its next chapter.

What Porkka inherited was a business shaped by an entrepreneurial culture that had been one of its greatest strengths. Seppälä's willingness to challenge convention, move quickly, and back bold ideas had helped create a company that stood apart from its competitors. Much of the spirit that defined Verkkokauppa.com, from its relentless focus on customers to its appetite for unconventional bets, was a direct product of its founder.

The challenge was that success had also created a company that still operated much like a fast-growing startup. Many decisions, processes, and ways of working reflected years of founder-led growth. Porkka's task was not to replace that culture but to preserve its strengths while building an organization that could scale beyond any one individual.

That meant developing a stronger management structure, broadening ownership across the leadership team, documenting processes, and introducing systems that made performance more transparent for investors and analysts.

It was as much a cultural transition as an operational one: moving from a founder-led organization to a more distributed model of leadership without losing the ambition and boldness that had made the company successful in the first place.

The one-hour bet

Much of that investment went into building a logistics platform designed for fast, cost-efficient delivery. After an extensive review in 2018 and 2019, the company selected Swisslog's AutoStore system and rolled it out at scale, including what Porkka describes as the world's only installation of its kind built into a multi-storey building.

The automation did not stop at storage. Packing processes were automated, internal goods flows were redesigned, and the company moved beyond a model that had once relied solely on Posti. Together, the changes laid the foundation for some of Verkkokauppa.com's most ambitious customer-facing innovations.

However, the boldest bet was the one-hour delivery. The doubters had a clear story, he recalls. Finns want to drive to the shop, see the fridge before they buy it, and talk to a salesperson. Nobody truly needs same-day delivery, let alone same-hour.

Porkka and his team bet the opposite. Make it easy enough that the gift for tonight's birthday party arrives within the hour, and you have created real value. He saw it as the next disruption, and the company went after it with what he calls a startup mentality and a strong collective belief.

A dose of Swedishness

That belief is, if anything, stronger today. Porkka frames the present as his most accomplished stretch, a company competing hard in a tight market, with thin category margins, and still finding room to invest and rewrite how retail is done in Finland.

He closes on a national note that doubles as a leadership one. Finland's economy, he thinks, is showing signs of life, and the country could use a dose of Swedishness: more optimism, more willingness to celebrate when a company succeeds rather than defaulting to scepticism and asking why someone failed.

The point is not that Finland lacks ambition. Rather, he believes that a culture that openly welcomes success makes it easier for companies to think bigger, attract investment, and pursue growth.

After all, companies rarely grow beyond the limits of what they believe they can become.

Insider interviews

Labor law expert Sanna Honkinen: Finnish companies face an AI restructuring question that the law hasn't fully answered

May 20, 2026

Chinese courts have ruled that AI adoption alone does not justify dismissing workers. Finnish employers have far broader discretion — but the legal risk emerges earlier than many boards realize.

When a Hangzhou tech company tried to replace its AI quality-assurance supervisor with a large language model — offering him a 40% pay cut to a different role, then firing him when he refused — China's courts ruled the dismissal illegal. The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court decision, published in late April as part of a set of typical AI-related labor cases, established a principle now drawing international attention: AI adoption alone does not justify firing workers.

Finnish employers operate under very different rules, but the underlying question Chinese courts raised is one Finnish boards will face soon, if they aren't facing it already: at what point does deploying AI shift from being a productivity-driven investment to a decision that results in a reduction of the workforce?

"There is no black and white answer to that," says Sanna Honkinen, head of employment practice at Hannes Snellman. And that ambiguity, she warns, is where the legal risk lives.

The Chinese precedent

The Hangzhou ruling, upheld on appeal on April 28, centered on a quality assurance supervisor identified only as Zhou. Hired in 2022 at a monthly salary of 25,000 yuan (USD3,676) to oversee his employer's AI output, Zhou was told in 2025 that the company intended to replace his role with a large language model. He was offered a different position at 15,000 yuan — a 40% pay cut — and dismissed when he refused.

The Intermediate People's Court ruled that AI-driven job replacement does not constitute a "major change in objective circumstances" under China's Labor Contract Law, the legal threshold normally required to justify redundancy-based termination. The court also found the reassignment offer unreasonable on its own terms. The ruling built on a December 2024 Beijing arbitration decision involving a map data worker dismissed after AI took over his role, reaching the same conclusion: adopting AI is a business choice, not an unforeseen event, and its costs cannot be shifted unilaterally onto employees.

The cases have drawn international legal attention because they cut against the assumption — common in at-will jurisdictions like the United States — that AI-driven restructuring is a straightforward business decision. Finland's framework sits between these poles.

The Finnish legal reality

Finnish employers have considerably more discretion than their Chinese counterparts to restructure around AI.

"In Finland, the employer has the right to decide what business activities are operated and how business and roles within the company are organized," Honkinen says.

Roles can be terminated for financial, production-related, or reorganization reasons linked to technological development, including AI adoption, provided the amount of work has genuinely declined. But that discretion comes with procedural strings attached.

Under Finland's Co-operation Act, employers with at least 50 employees must begin change negotiations if planned measures could materially affect employees' work tasks, working methods, working hours, or lead to layoffs or dismissals on financial or production-related grounds. Employers with 20 to 49 employees face similar obligations in cases involving broader personnel reductions.

Employers must also assess whether employees can be reassigned or retrained before dismissals take place. "The employer has to consider whether the employee can be placed into another role or trained for another role," Honkinen says.

That retraining obligation is narrower than it sounds. Companies do not have to educate employees into entirely new professions — the expectation is shorter-term training into adjacent roles where employees already possess the core capabilities needed.

The timing trap

The harder question for Finnish boards is not whether they can reduce roles, but when AI adoption becomes serious enough to trigger the formal negotiation process.

That is Honkinen's central warning. Companies that drift from AI experimentation into operational deployment without recognizing the transition can find themselves on the wrong side of the procedural line.

"At what point does the company have sufficient information on the estimated impacts on employees?" she says. There is no clean answer in the statute — and the timing matters, because employers cannot make business decisions that directly result in headcount reductions before change negotiations have been completed.

At the same time, change negotiations cannot be held on a “just in case” basis without a concrete plan and an assessment of workforce impacts. "That is something that needs to be remembered," Honkinen says.

As understanding of AI’s concrete impact on business operations grows, it becomes increasingly likely that we will see more change negotiations carried out already at the stage when new AI investments are being considered, she adds.

The Chinese rulings flagged a structurally similar issue from the opposite direction. Courts there argued that if AI restructuring becomes necessary, employers should first prioritize retraining workers, offer reasonable reassignment terms, and provide support measures before moving to dismissals. Two very different legal systems have landed on overlapping employer obligations.

The transition is already underway

A 2025 survey commissioned by OP Financial Group found that 38% of large Finnish companies had already replaced some work tasks with AI, while more than half said they planned to do so in the future. The same survey found that 84% of companies had trained employees to use AI tools.

An IMF paper published earlier this year estimated that around one-fifth of Finland's workforce faces a risk of AI-related job displacement, particularly in software development, finance, and administrative work — even as Finland remains among the countries best positioned to benefit from AI adoption overall.

Honkinen says the largest impact is likely to fall on knowledge-work sectors where companies can automate parts of expert workflows without removing the need for human oversight. She pointed particularly to junior roles, including in the legal sector itself, where AI can increasingly automate repetitive tasks previously handled by entry-level employees.

"The most junior roles are, of course, roles where there might be the most impact," Honkinen says. But she argued the issue is more complicated than simply reducing headcount. "You can't really have senior employees in the future without first having junior employees."

That tension is likely to become more visible across Nordic companies as AI takes over portions of administrative, analytical, and documentation-heavy work that traditionally formed the training ground for younger professionals.

Rather than eliminating entire professions, Honkinen says many companies are likely to redesign workflows and redistribute responsibilities. "It's more a matter of changes in the scope of work. New skills and new tasks might be introduced."

Most companies are still approaching AI cautiously rather than aggressively replacing workers. "At the moment, the general assumption is that individuals are still needed to verify the results of AI," she says.

What boards should actually ask

Honkinen says boards should focus less on immediate labor savings and more on whether management has a credible long-term workforce strategy.

"What they should ask from management is whether there is systematic development of employee skills and capabilities taking place in the company," she says.

She describes the current moment as a "strategic transformation of working life," where companies need clearer plans for training employees, introducing AI tools, and adapting organizational structures over time.

In practical terms, that points to several questions Finnish boards and management teams should be working through now:

Is there a documented workforce skills plan tied to the AI roadmap, not just a cost-savings case?
At what threshold does a pilot become a deployment that triggers change negotiation obligations — and who inside the company is responsible for flagging that line?
Are AI usage policies in place before deployment scales, including rules on what data employees can share with external tools and how confidential information is handled?
Are change-negotiation timelines built into AI rollout plans, rather than treated as an afterthought once decisions have effectively been made?

"In many companies, there is a growing need for new policies and new instructions to employees as to how to use AI," Honkinen says.

Despite the pace of technological change, she does not see a strong need for entirely new labor legislation in Finland. "The thing with law is that when we have technological innovation, it might be difficult to have a legal framework that is always able to follow the technological innovations."

The larger challenge for Finnish employers, she suggests, is operational rather than legislative. Companies need to decide when AI adoption stops being a technology experiment and becomes a workforce restructuring process — and act before the law makes that decision for them. At the same time, they need to ensure employees are systematically trained to use AI effectively and responsibly.

Commercial partnership

Vivicta

Insider interviews

A new item for the board agenda: seven in ten are investing, three in ten are in control

Sep 30, 2026

The question stopped being technical

The gap is not in the budget

The findings describe a subject that is recognised but not yet governed:

70 per cent expect sovereignty-related investment to increase over the next 12 months.
46 per cent have a formal, explicit sovereignty strategy.
29 per cent strongly believe they control their critical data to a sufficient standard.

For a board, that is a familiar situation in unfamiliar clothing: an investment decision is coming up on a matter that too often has no strategy, no named owner and no metric.

Finland invests most. Sweden is further ahead on strategy.

The opportunity is competitiveness.

Kiiskinen does not frame the subject as a threat. She sees it primarily as an opportunity to strengthen an organisation's resilience and competitiveness, and, ultimately, shareholder value.

On the risk side, Kiiskinen names one above the others: excessive dependency on individual providers.

Full control is not the goal

Kiiskinen is careful not to overstate what the survey shows.

What the board should ask

Five questions a board can put to management at its next meeting:

Do we share a view of which data is business-critical to us?
Which systems are business-critical, and do we understand the difference between the two?
Where does our business-critical data actually reside, and how is it governed?
Who has access to it?
To what extent are our data, systems and decision-making genuinely under our own control, and which part of our preparedness is an assumption rather than something tested?

None of these requires technical expertise to ask. On the evidence of this survey, many organisations would struggle to answer them.

Insider interviews

Six CFO seats, one lesson: Finnair’s Pia Aaltonen-Forsell on what survives every crisis

Aug 5, 2026

For Aaltonen-Forsell, the lesson is not how Finnair handled one disruption but how it prepared for many.

Optionality is a strategy

Ask Aaltonen-Forsell what resilience means, and the seasoned CFO starts with the balance sheet.

Managing risk without predicting it

Finnair follows the latter approach. The airline relies on a hedging policy, but Aaltonen-Forsell says it still requires a close understanding of market conditions.

Rather than reacting to each headline, whether a breakthrough in peace talks or a fresh escalation, Finnair follows a defined framework while adjusting its decisions as conditions evolve.

Complexity rewards collaboration

Cash creates options

Working as both an executive and a board member has reinforced another principle. "I've learned to focus on the core of the topic and the fundamentals."

Finnair is planning to renew its fleet with a mix of options, including Embraer E195 narrow-body jets. The image shows Embraer E190 jets used on short-haul European routes. Image credit: Finnair

Trust is built before it is needed

Besides optionality, trust is another idea Aaltonen-Forsell returns to. Trust, she says, also has to be built before it is needed.

"You have to put a lot of effort into building that trust. It doesn't come overnight. It comes from consistently doing what you say you will do and delivering what you promise."

Trust allows management teams and boards to make difficult decisions together. It cannot be built in the middle of a crisis.

Insider interviews

Panu Porkka, the quiet engine behind Verkkokauppa.com's loudest bets

Jun 19, 2026

A team that carries the weight

The phrase he keeps returning to is shared ownership. The overlap between people, the way one steps in where another leaves off, would not function, he says, without it.

Like-minded people, excited about the same thing, supporting each other and taking the weight: that is what turns a lonely job into a workable one.

The German lesson

Germany was never foreign to him: he attended the German School of Helsinki, the language and culture are familiar, and the country is something of a second home.

After Lidl, Porkka spent four years at Tokmanni, after which he made a move into specialty retail as chief executive of the Finnish bookshop chain Suomalainen Kirjakauppa.

No hundred-day plan

There was no formal brief beyond the obvious one: growth had begun to slow, and the company needed to find its next chapter.

The one-hour bet

A dose of Swedishness

The point is not that Finland lacks ambition. Rather, he believes that a culture that openly welcomes success makes it easier for companies to think bigger, attract investment, and pursue growth.

After all, companies rarely grow beyond the limits of what they believe they can become.

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Inside the CEO mind

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A group of unicorns will never outperform a successful team.

Anna Wäck

CEO, Sitowise

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Inside the CEO mind

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You cannot be emotionally attached to the original plan. You have to be willing to turn every stone.

Tuija Kalpala

CEO, Betolar

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Inside the CEO mind

“

Active ownership starts with ambition. We need to define what the full potential of a company really is, and then align everything behind reaching that.

Matts Rosenberg

CEO, Solidium

Read the article

Connect a Quotes Collection List to the "Quotes List" property

Columnists

Who will build the next shared vision?

Johan Hammarlund

Guest columnist

Oct 6, 2026

Currently there appears to be a widespread feeling of rising uncertainty and a lack of a shared vision for the future. During Sweden’s recent election campaign commentators repeatedly asked where the larger visions for the country had gone. Amid promises of quick fixes and tactical positioning, the question of what society we should build seemed harder to answer. Similar examples with voices calling for a new vision have also been heard in the other Nordic countries recently. The most obvious example is perhaps Finnish Sitra that explicitly describes the need for “an inspiring new promise about the future”.

Considering the turbulent situation in the world in the last decade, it is perhaps not surprising that we find feelings of uncertainty. It is in fact something we could expect if we apply the long-term cyclical perspective of thinkers such as Neil Howe who describes how long cycles shape the characteristics of our societies and how the change from cycle to cycle typically results in crises. Viewed through the ‘wheel of seasons’ model developed by my colleagues Mats Lindgren and Jörgen Jedbratt, our current situation may represent a transition from winter to spring, during which crises will lead to new dominant paradigms. If reality were to follow the model, this should mean that we are slowly shifting towards an increased focus on long-term perspectives and finally also a rising belief in a positive future.

Another sign of the uncertainty is the rising interest in scenario planning. This is a well-known pattern that goes back to the oil crisis of the 1970s when Shell’s scenario planning rose to fame and it is now perhaps the most familiar tool in the foresight toolbox. There is furthermore a general acceptance of scenario planning as a relevant tool for our time, but if we want to get broad participation and support for changes the map provided by the scenarios also needs to be accompanied by something more visionary.

The Nordic effect

So, if we are approaching a period of renewal maybe it is time to start thinking about how Nordic companies and other organisations could help bring this new future into being and shape it? How can we contribute to the creation of a new vision that can guide and speed up necessary changes so that we can balance sustainability and resilience, productivity and family life, and so on? Even though there exists a joint Nordic vision for 2030 that was adopted by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2019 this is apparently not sufficient (and to be honest, how many of you have read it? I have, but that’s more or less required as part of my job).

Maybe it is safe to say that it is time for a new Nordic vision? And maybe this time we should start the process as soon as possible ourselves in our own organisations so that we together can create small pieces of the great puzzle that would make up a new shared vision.

For boards, this means connecting the vision to investment priorities, capabilities and partnerships, and deciding how the organisation can contribute to a wider Nordic ambition.

Questions we need to answer in this process include:

What future do we want to contribute to over the next ten to fifteen years?
What can we influence? Which partners and capabilities will we need?
What decisions do we need to make?

The last point may seem a bit obvious but as most of us know, foresight without action means nothing. There is in fact even a risk that foresight in some cases could become counterproductive and hinder necessary changes.

Decades ago, Kets de Vries and Miller described how some organisations become trapped in endless studies and analyses without taking action. Today, the abundance of foresight consultants and methods can give this tendency even more room to grow. An organisation may find itself contemplating a million possible futures, watching doors close one by one while trying to identify the perfect course of action. Foresight should help us choose a direction, prepare for different outcomes and move forward. A good analysis that leads to action is better than a perfect analysis that does not.

What's next

Let’s apply the tools from our foresight toolkits and start working! A new shared vision is needed and unless you take part in shaping it someone else will. So, let’s start small in our own organisations and launch processes to formulate our own visions and in this process also define our roles and purpose. This is often best done using collaborative methods – not just for the formulation of the vision but also to get people on board from the start because another thing that we need to remember is this. Scenarios and visions can give us a map of the future. But we still have to make the journey ourselves.

Johan Hammarlund

Collaborative Foresight Advisor, Kairos Future

Johan Hammarlund is a Senior Consultant at Kairos Future, a leading foresight and strategy consultancy that for more than 30 years has helped organisations anticipate change, explore future opportunities, and design strategies for long-term success. Johan specialises in collaborative foresight and democratic innovations and is active in professional networks across Sweden, the Nordic region and Europe.

Johan Hammarlund

Nordic Foresight

The Nordic Foresight Network is a network of foresight professionals advancing futures thinking across the Nordic region.

Nordic Foresight Network

Sources

Mats Lindgren - Winter is Coming or Springtime with Trump, 2016
Kets de Vries and Miller - The Neurotic Organization, 1984
Neil Howe - The Fourth Turning: Why American 'Crisis' May Last Until 2030, 2020
Monteiro and Dal Borgo - Supporting decision making with strategic foresight, 2023
Nordic prime ministers - Our Vision 2030, 2019
Anna Solovjew-Wartiovaara - Sitra Megatrends Report, 2026

Columnists

Who will build the next shared vision?

Johan Hammarlund

Guest columnist

Oct 6, 2026

The Nordic effect

For boards, this means connecting the vision to investment priorities, capabilities and partnerships, and deciding how the organisation can contribute to a wider Nordic ambition.

Questions we need to answer in this process include:

What future do we want to contribute to over the next ten to fifteen years?
What can we influence? Which partners and capabilities will we need?
What decisions do we need to make?

What's next

Johan Hammarlund

Collaborative Foresight Advisor, Kairos Future

Johan Hammarlund

Nordic Foresight

The Nordic Foresight Network is a network of foresight professionals advancing futures thinking across the Nordic region.

Nordic Foresight Network

Sources

Mats Lindgren - Winter is Coming or Springtime with Trump, 2016
Kets de Vries and Miller - The Neurotic Organization, 1984
Neil Howe - The Fourth Turning: Why American 'Crisis' May Last Until 2030, 2020
Monteiro and Dal Borgo - Supporting decision making with strategic foresight, 2023
Nordic prime ministers - Our Vision 2030, 2019
Anna Solovjew-Wartiovaara - Sitra Megatrends Report, 2026

Columnists

Who will build the next shared vision?

Johan Hammarlund

Guest columnist

Oct 6, 2026

The Nordic effect

For boards, this means connecting the vision to investment priorities, capabilities and partnerships, and deciding how the organisation can contribute to a wider Nordic ambition.

Questions we need to answer in this process include:

What future do we want to contribute to over the next ten to fifteen years?
What can we influence? Which partners and capabilities will we need?
What decisions do we need to make?

What's next

Johan Hammarlund

Collaborative Foresight Advisor, Kairos Future

Johan Hammarlund

Nordic Foresight

The Nordic Foresight Network is a network of foresight professionals advancing futures thinking across the Nordic region.

Nordic Foresight Network

Sources

Mats Lindgren - Winter is Coming or Springtime with Trump, 2016
Kets de Vries and Miller - The Neurotic Organization, 1984
Neil Howe - The Fourth Turning: Why American 'Crisis' May Last Until 2030, 2020
Monteiro and Dal Borgo - Supporting decision making with strategic foresight, 2023
Nordic prime ministers - Our Vision 2030, 2019
Anna Solovjew-Wartiovaara - Sitra Megatrends Report, 2026

Columnists

The Next Nordic advantage‌ - What if talent, capital and innovation start flowing north?‌

Minna Koskelo

Guest columnist

Sep 8, 2026

Geopolitical discussions have been framed through the lens of the Global West, Global East and Global South. Recently, a fourth concept has started to emerge in strategic discussions: the Global North.

The term is usually used more broadly to describe the developed world as a whole. In this column, I deliberately narrow it to the Nordic region because it represents a distinctive institutional model.

I first encountered the idea when Finland's President Alexander Stubb discussed the possibility of the Global North as an emerging geopolitical force during an interview on Ykkösaamu, one of Finland's leading current affairs programmes, in February 2026.
Strong Nordic cooperation is one dimension of this thinking.

Are we moving towards a new geopolitical geometry? The significance of the North has grown in recent years through developments such as NATO's enlargement and the increasing strategic importance of the Arctic region. The Arctic has received unprecedented international attention, not only because of security concerns, but also because of its growing relevance for energy, infrastructure, logistics and critical resources.

The growing strategic importance of the Nordic region is reflected for instance in NATO's decision to establish its Forward Land Forces Multinational Staff Element in Rovaniemi, creating a permanent NATO presence in Northern Finland.

In 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard moved forward with plans to procure 11 new icebreakers from Finland, relying heavily on Finnish icebreaker expertise and shipbuilding capabilities.

The Nordic Effect

For decades, the United States has been the world's dominant magnet for talent, capital and innovation. Yet recent policy shifts and a growing emphasis on "America First" raise a strategic question worth putting to a board: What if America First ultimately makes America less attractive to global talent, capital and ideas? It is a possibility worth exploring. What if a more fragmented geopolitical environment gradually disperses global flows of talent, investment and innovation? What if some of these flows begin seeking more predictable destinations? This is where the Global North starts to matter commercially.

The defining characteristics of the Nordic region include stable societies, low levels of corruption, strong educational systems, safety and security, a strong rule of law, well-functioning institutions, advanced innovation ecosystems and a long tradition of diplomacy and cooperation. These are often described as social strengths. In an increasingly fragmented world, they may also become strategic economic assets.
For instance The World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index 2025 ranked Denmark 1st, with Norway and Finland immediately behind among the strongest rule-of-law countries in the world. Nordic countries also perform exceptionally well in innovation: in the Global Innovation Index 2024

When political risk increases elsewhere, predictability itself may become a competitive advantage and characteristics of an attractive investment environment.

How could your company benefit if the Nordic region became an increasingly attractive destination for talent, investment and innovation?

No Nordic country can compete with the United States or China on scale alone. Together, however, the region represents a globally relevant platform for innovation, technology, research and investment. The four Nordic exchanges — Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo — are already a single functioning market.

Another signal of deeper Nordic integration can be seen in capital markets. In August 2026, Bloomberg reported that the Nordic Compass initiative was exploring a common Nordic stock exchange bringing together the markets of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The initiative includes major Nordic actors such as Wallenberg Investments, EQT, Nordea, Nokia, Kone, Nasdaq and the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Its stated ambition is to strengthen the region's ability to compete for capital and support growth companies at a scale that individual Nordic markets struggle to achieve alone. Such discussions suggest that the idea of the Nordics acting as a more integrated economic platform is already moving from geopolitical speculation into practical business strategy.

If the twentieth century rewarded scale and the early twenty-first century rewarded speed, the next decade may reward trusted collaboration.

What's Next?

Whether the Global North emerges as a recognised centre of power remains uncertain. But uncertainty is precisely why boards should explore the possibility.

One of the core purposes of strategic foresight is not to predict what will happen, but to expand the range of possibilities organisations are prepared for. The most valuable strategic question is rarely "What will happen?" It is "What becomes possible if this happens?"

For boards, a practical starting point is visioning.

Imagine it is 2035 and the Global North has become one of the world's most attractive destinations for talent, investment and innovation.

What would be the desired role that your company wants to play in that future?
What capabilities would that require?
Which partnerships should be built today?
What opportunities might competitors overlook?

The companies that benefit most from emerging shifts are rarely those that predict the future correctly. They are those that recognise new possibilities early and position themselves accordingly.

The future is built, not forecast.

Minna Koskelo

Founder and CEO, 11Helsinki

She is also Founder and Chair of the Board of Futures Finland, a founding organisation of the Nordic Foresight Network. Her work focuses on strategic foresight, helping organisations turn foresight into action.

Nordic Foresight

Minna Koskelo

The Nordic Foresight Network is a network of foresight professionals advancing futures thinking across the Nordic region.

Nordic Foresight Network

The Nordic Foresight Column is a monthly series by Nordic Foresight Network in which foresight professionals from the five Nordic countries examine the shifts shaping the region.

Columnists

The Next Nordic advantage‌ - What if talent, capital and innovation start flowing north?‌

Minna Koskelo

Guest columnist

Sep 8, 2026

In 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard moved forward with plans to procure 11 new icebreakers from Finland, relying heavily on Finnish icebreaker expertise and shipbuilding capabilities.

The Nordic Effect

When political risk increases elsewhere, predictability itself may become a competitive advantage and characteristics of an attractive investment environment.

How could your company benefit if the Nordic region became an increasingly attractive destination for talent, investment and innovation?

If the twentieth century rewarded scale and the early twenty-first century rewarded speed, the next decade may reward trusted collaboration.

What's Next?

Whether the Global North emerges as a recognised centre of power remains uncertain. But uncertainty is precisely why boards should explore the possibility.

For boards, a practical starting point is visioning.

Imagine it is 2035 and the Global North has become one of the world's most attractive destinations for talent, investment and innovation.

What would be the desired role that your company wants to play in that future?
What capabilities would that require?
Which partnerships should be built today?
What opportunities might competitors overlook?

The companies that benefit most from emerging shifts are rarely those that predict the future correctly. They are those that recognise new possibilities early and position themselves accordingly.

The future is built, not forecast.

Minna Koskelo

Founder and CEO, 11Helsinki

Nordic Foresight

Minna Koskelo

The Nordic Foresight Network is a network of foresight professionals advancing futures thinking across the Nordic region.

Nordic Foresight Network

The Nordic Foresight Column is a monthly series by Nordic Foresight Network in which foresight professionals from the five Nordic countries examine the shifts shaping the region.

Columnists

The Next Nordic advantage‌ - What if talent, capital and innovation start flowing north?‌

Minna Koskelo

Guest columnist

Sep 8, 2026

In 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard moved forward with plans to procure 11 new icebreakers from Finland, relying heavily on Finnish icebreaker expertise and shipbuilding capabilities.

The Nordic Effect

When political risk increases elsewhere, predictability itself may become a competitive advantage and characteristics of an attractive investment environment.

How could your company benefit if the Nordic region became an increasingly attractive destination for talent, investment and innovation?

If the twentieth century rewarded scale and the early twenty-first century rewarded speed, the next decade may reward trusted collaboration.

What's Next?

Whether the Global North emerges as a recognised centre of power remains uncertain. But uncertainty is precisely why boards should explore the possibility.

For boards, a practical starting point is visioning.

Imagine it is 2035 and the Global North has become one of the world's most attractive destinations for talent, investment and innovation.

What would be the desired role that your company wants to play in that future?
What capabilities would that require?
Which partnerships should be built today?
What opportunities might competitors overlook?

The companies that benefit most from emerging shifts are rarely those that predict the future correctly. They are those that recognise new possibilities early and position themselves accordingly.

The future is built, not forecast.

Minna Koskelo

Founder and CEO, 11Helsinki

Nordic Foresight

Minna Koskelo

The Nordic Foresight Network is a network of foresight professionals advancing futures thinking across the Nordic region.

Nordic Foresight Network

The Nordic Foresight Column is a monthly series by Nordic Foresight Network in which foresight professionals from the five Nordic countries examine the shifts shaping the region.

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Insider views

Insider Views

What chairpersons often overlook about CEO performance: appreciation

Taina Hasselblad

Guest writer

Mar 18, 2026

Chairpersons shape more than governance. They shape how CEOs lead. A new Finnish study examining the relationship between CEOs and board chairs suggests that appreciation, expressed through trust, autonomy, and recognition, may be one of the most influential yet overlooked drivers of executive performance.

Boards devote significant attention to strategy, performance targets, and governance processes. Yet one factor that may strongly influence how a CEO performs often receives far less attention: appreciation.

My new research (CEO experiences of appreciative leadership in the interaction with the chairperson of the board 2025) explores the relationship between CEOs and chairmen and suggests that trust, autonomy, and recognition from the board can significantly affect a CEO’s motivation and leadership effectiveness based on a limited number of interviews with CEOs of limited Finnish companies.

The findings highlight how the tone of this relationship can shape not only executive performance but also the culture and resilience of the entire organization, in addition to financial profitability. The study also reveals a latent expectation among CEOs for a more human-centered leadership style from their chairman.

The study highlights that appreciation is not an interpersonal nicety but a core determinant of sustainable performance. By moving from a culture of control to a culture of appreciation, organizations can transform "performance management" into "performance enablement."

The difference between appreciation and its absence is felt powerfully by CEOs

In terms of performance, appreciation allows for faster and more confident decision-making and fosters the resilience needed to lead through crises.

“When the board truly gets why we’re doing what we’re doing, it fuels my motivation to lead beyond the numbers,” one of the participants mentioned. Conversely, a lack of appreciation leads to emotional fatigue and disengagement, even at CEO positions. As one participant stated, "When results were ignored, my motivation faded despite the bonuses".

When the relationship between the CEO and chairman demonstrated appreciation, one participant said: ''I felt my chair genuinely wanted me to succeed, not just as an executive, but as a person. That trust made all the difference." However, someone had a contrasting experience. One executive said: ''Silence from the board was harder than criticism. I had no idea where I stood; it was silence, not support."

CEOs perceived a lack of preparation or industry knowledge among board members as a direct form of disrespect toward their own professional efforts. One participant mentioned that “Having a chair with actual experience in my industry made me sharper. The feedback was actionable”.

Primary enablers for CEO performance

1. Trust: The foundation of performance

Trust emerged as the most significant motivational factor identified by CEOs. In the social exchange between a CEO and the chairman, trust is the intangible return that fosters a psychologically safe space for strategic dialogue. One of the participants noted that "Knowing where I stand keeps me focused and calm." Another participant mentioned that "He didn’t panic or pressure me—he just said, ‘I trust you’ll find a way.’ That’s powerful leadership."

2. Autonomy

A recurring theme in the study results is the need for autonomy. Appreciative leadership is often expressed not just by what a chairman does, but by what they refrain from doing. CEOs feel most appreciated when they are granted "space for leadership"—the freedom to lead in their own voice and make decisions without being constantly second-guessed. “What keeps me motivated is the ability to make a real impact without being second-guessed constantly," stated one of the participants. Another CEO mentioned that "I perform best when I don’t have to constantly justify every step. Autonomy boosts execution."

3. Recognition

Despite the formal nature of board governance, interpersonal warmth and relatedness are critical. CEOs highly value chairmen who act as mentors and sparring partners rather than just overseers. "When the chair acknowledged my effort after a demanding quarter, it made me push harder, " mentioned one of the participants. Based on the study findings, CEOs also acknowledged verbal recognition over monetary rewards as seen in the following comment: "A simple acknowledgment after a tough meeting made me feel seen—it had more effect than a bonus."

From ''You learn to expect nothing'' to ''Appreciation fuels energy''

Based on the empirical findings, the study offers several practical suggestions for enhancing the CEO & chairperson relationship:

1. Enforce role clarity and autonomy: Chairmen must avoid daily operational interference. A joint role description should be defined to clarify responsibilities and decision-making authority between roles.

2. Build strong interpersonal connections: The chairman should actively seek to understand the CEO as a person, including their values and performance drivers. This connection is vital for honest dialogue during crises.

3. Provide consistent recognition and feedback: Intangible rewards like verbal acknowledgment are powerful motivators. Boards should use feedback not just to correct, but to model the culture they want the CEO to cascade through the company.

4. Close board competence gaps: Continuous development and structured onboarding for board members are essential. A board that lacks market understanding cannot provide the "appreciative challenge" a CEO needs to grow.

5. Define and develop organizational culture at the board level: Leadership models defined for the organization should also apply to the board. Only a unified culture ensures that the CEO is empowered to perform and lead with enchanted style.

Conclusion: Appreciation as systemic capability

Based on the empirical findings, appreciation may be seen as a systemic capability referring to the integration of appreciation into the very fabric of an organization, its culture, structures, and routines, rather than being treated as merely an individual leadership style or a set of isolated behaviors. Therefore, it requires a foundation that normalizes respect, feedback, and mutual learning across the entire organization and demonstrates that it is a shared responsibility between the CEO and chairperson.

The study findings concluded that when appreciation is a systemic capability, it fosters enduring conditions for performance, well-being, and organizational success, ensuring that the positive effects of appreciative leadership cascade through all levels of the company.

Insider Views

Reputation is built on what leaders choose not to ignore

Niko Rinta

Guest writer

Jan 27, 2026

For decades, Nordic leadership has been associated with trust, transparency, and low hierarchy. Leaders are expected to listen, explain, and lead by example rather than authority. In this context, reputation has never been built solely on words – but today, that expectation has become even more explicit.

In the Nordic business environment, reputation is shaped less by what leaders say in principle and more by how they act when values are tested, and by what they allow to pass without intervention. In the Nordics, silence is not interpreted as neutrality. It is interpreted as a choice.

One of the paradoxes of Nordic leadership is this: the higher the baseline trust, the higher the expectations when something goes wrong.

In hierarchical cultures, silence from leadership can be read as distance. In Nordic organizations, it is more often read as avoidance. Employees, customers, and partners expect leaders to step in, not because they demand perfection, but because they expect responsibility.

This is why hesitation or non-intervention can damage reputation faster in Nordic contexts than in many other environments. Trust is not lost gradually; it breaks when people feel leadership is unwilling to act when it matters.

Action, inaction, and the credibility gap

Recent years have provided several instructive examples across Nordic companies. When broader societal debates began to affect perceptions of Finland internationally, Finnair chose to intervene publicly despite not being the origin of the controversy, based on reporting by the BBC in December. The decision reflected a clear understanding that silence would have been interpreted as indifference, with real implications for international trust and business.

By contrast, the public discussion surrounding Gofore illustrates a leadership challenge that is increasingly common in modern organizations: the movement of internal communication into the public sphere. In this case, a discussion originally intended for an internal Slack channel entered the public domain and became a subject of broader societal discussion beyond the organization itself, as reported by Helsingin Sanomat earlier this month.

In such situations, reputational effects are shaped not only by the original internal exchange but also by how organizational leadership addresses the matter once it becomes public. As the case is still recent, its possible longer-term implications cannot yet be assessed. To date, Gofore has communicated its position in a clear manner through a combination of individual leaders’ social media statements and press releases.

Finlayson, on the other hand, represents a distinctly proactive model. Rather than responding case by case, the company has repeatedly chosen to intervene publicly on issues it considers aligned with its values. This approach has not been without risk or criticism, but it demonstrates a critical leadership insight: reputation is not formed in isolated moments, but through consistent choices over time. By accepting the cost of intervention, leadership defines what the organization stands for and what it will not ignore.

In a Nordic context, this consistency matters deeply. Credibility is not built through consensus, but through coherence. People may disagree with individual positions, but they trust leaders who are predictable in their principles.

What these situations reveal is a broader truth: words without action erode trust. Organizations may speak convincingly about inclusion, respect, or psychological safety, but those values only gain meaning when leaders are willing to act on them, and especially when doing so is uncomfortable.

Inaction is still a decision

Nordic leaders are often cautious about overreacting. Dialogue, reflection, and fairness are deeply ingrained leadership traits. But in today’s environment, delay itself communicates priorities.

When leaders choose not to intervene, observers do not assume neutrality. They assume tolerance. In high-trust cultures, this assumption carries particular weight: If leadership does not act, people conclude that the behavior in question is acceptable or at least not important enough to challenge.

This is how reputation is shaped not only by action, but by tolerated inaction. Organizational culture is defined less by stated values than by the moments when leaders choose to step in or consciously step aside.

It is tempting to frame these situations as communication challenges or social media dynamics. In reality, they are leadership tests, and especially in Nordic organizations, where leaders are expected to take responsibility rather than hide behind process.

The question Nordic leaders must answer

In a region built on trust, equality, and openness, leaders must confront questions that go beyond messaging:

What are we willing to intervene in, and even when it is uncomfortable?
Where do we draw the line, knowing that inaction will be interpreted as acceptance?
What does our silence say about our leadership?

Reputation in the Nordic context is not built through slogans or statements. It is built through decisions that are visible, repeated, and sometimes difficult.

And more often than not, it is defined by the moments when leaders choose not to intervene.

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Insights

Trackers

Finland's restructuring wave goes strategic

Oct 12, 2026

Nineteen listed Finnish companies announced nearly 3,000 potential job changes in Q1, but the headline obscures a more interesting story: most of this isn't distress. It's a deliberate reshaping of what these companies want to be.

Companies

Reporting across all sectors

Activity

Press releases Jan–Mar 2026

Announced

2,986

Positions at maximum potential

Confirmed

357

Positions confirmed in Q1

Concluded

Negotiations with final data

Nineteen publicly listed Finnish companies filed 25 workforce change negotiation press releases between January and March 2026, disclosing a combined announced potential impact of approximately 2,986 positions. It should prompt a more precise question: which of these companies were cutting because they had no choice, and which were cutting because they had a strategy? The answer, drawn from matching each negotiation announcement against the company's Q1 earnings, changes the picture considerably.

Monthly press release activity

February produced the quarter's highest single-month activity — 12 of 25 press releases — a concentration that mirrors the Finnish corporate calendar rather than any sudden deterioration in labour conditions. Companies publishing full-year results in January and February tend to announce restructuring concurrently.

March accounted for 10 releases, of which 5 were conclusions of negotiations started earlier. The cadence matters: a spike in February announcements is not evidence of accelerating distress; it is evidence of earnings-season dynamics. Analysts treating February as an inflection point are reading a calendar effect as a macroeconomic signal.

Figure 01 · Press Release Watch

Monthly press release activity — Q1 2026

Reduction announcements surged in February with 11 press releases — more than three times January's count.

Layoff / reduction

Hiring / expansion

Cost reduction & profitability improvement

Why companies initiated change negotiations in Q1 2026

Five rationale clusters emerge across 19 companies. Cost pressure dominates, but market weakness and strategic transformation increasingly share the stage. AI is becoming a stated driver, though realisation rates suggest mixed conviction.

Figure 02 · Rationale Clusters

The most common rationales for change negotiations

Companies appear in multiple themes. Bar length reflects relative company count.

Digia · Lamor · Solteq · Nordea · Nanoform · YIT · Wulff · PunaMusta · Valmet · Netum

10companies

Long-term competitiveness & strategic positioning

Valmet · KONE · Nordea · Wärtsilä · Lamor · Grano · Nanoform · Feelia

8companies

Market weakness, demand decline & industry change

Digia · Etteplan · Vincit · Netum · Posti · PunaMusta · KONE

7companies

Organisational transformation & operating model renewal

Lamor · Grano · Wärtsilä · YIT · Nordea · Wulff

6companies

Technology, AI & capability shiftsEmerging

Etteplan · Vincit · Digia · Nordea

4companies

Financial driver (cost, demand)

Strategic driver (positioning, model renewal)

Technology / AI driver

Source · Listeds analysis · Q1 2026 press releases · companies appear in multiple themes

Rationale for change negotiations

The rationale behind change negotiations in 2026 was largely consistent across Nordic listed companies. Most cited cost savings, profitability improvements, and operational efficiency as key drivers. Many also pointed to weakened demand, changing market conditions, or declining volumes, while others framed the measures as part of broader strategic transformations aimed at strengthening long-term competitiveness. A smaller but growing group, Digia, Etteplan, Vincit, and Nordea, highlighted artificial intelligence, automation, and changing skill requirements as factors influencing workforce restructuring decisions.

Company Detail

Rationale by company — full dataset

19 of 19 companies shown

Company

Digia

Weakened customer demand in certain IT service areas and a targeted decline in IT-sector demand. Adjusting capacity, reducing costs, maintaining profitability, and continuing strategic investments in productisation, AI, and international expansion.

Streamlining the global operating model, improving efficiency, enabling more flexible scaling of operations and cost structure, and strengthening competitiveness and profitability.

Valmet

Improving long-term competitiveness in Biomaterial Solutions and Services, increasing manufacturing-network efficiency, aligning operations with the Lead the Way strategy, and achieving significant cost savings.

Aligning personnel capacity with prevailing demand, improving operational efficiency, enhancing profitability, implementing cost-saving measures, and responding better to customer and business needs.

PunaMusta Oy (Rebl Group)

Unifying production operations, adapting to declining market volumes, securing sustainable profitability, streamlining production, and creating a sustainable foundation for profitable growth.

Concentrating on core ready-meal operations in Pyhäntä, exiting the frozen products business, streamlining the business structure, and supporting growth in core operations.

Executing the bank's 2030 strategy through workforce skill shifts and structural efficiency improvements, reducing costs, changing workforce composition, and achieving long-term productivity targets.

Responding to a weak market and weakened demand, aligning competencies with structural industry changes driven by AI, improving profitability, and accelerating strategy execution.

Adapting the organisation to rapid AI-driven industry transformation, aligning staffing with current market conditions, maintaining competitiveness, and responding to changing customer demand.

Enhancing efficiency and capabilities within Finance & Control, ensuring continued global competitiveness, supporting long-term growth, and optimising operations through service-centre consolidation and organisational redesign.

Renewing the organisation in line with a new strategy, shifting from a production-oriented to a customer-focused operating model, strengthening long-term competitiveness, and generating cost savings.

Netum

Improving operational efficiency, adjusting personnel resources to market conditions and the near-term outlook, strengthening profitability, and creating a sustainable operating structure that supports future growth.

Responding to structural changes in the New Building Solutions market, supporting the transition toward Service and Modernisation businesses, enhancing efficiency, and strengthening competitiveness.

Renewing the operating model, streamlining the organisation, improving efficiency, and delivering annual cost savings while clarifying business operations and reporting structures.

Nanoform

Supporting its 2030 strategy and mid-term business targets, reorganising and consolidating operations, improving productivity and efficiency, reducing costs, strengthening competitiveness, and progressing toward profitability.

Posti

Adapting to declining mail volumes and increasing digitalisation through automation, operational restructuring, shop-network changes, and customer-service centralisation while maintaining nationwide service coverage.

Wulff

Strategic renewal focused on improving operational efficiency, strengthening customer-service capabilities, streamlining operations, supporting sustainable growth, and enhancing long-term competitiveness.

Apetit

Reviewing frozen pizza production due to underperforming sales, evaluating alternative manufacturing models, avoiding substantial future investment needs at the Pudasjärvi facility, and improving business viability.

Toivo

Accelerating recruitment to support multiple new projects, business expansion, and the company's target of 20% annual growth despite challenging market conditions.

Source · Company press releases · Q1 2026

One bank, one outlier, half the quarter

Figure 03 · Workforce Impact Ranking

Largest announced workforce reduction impacts

Nordea Bank's 1,500 announced positions dwarf all other Q1 reductions — nearly four times the next largest.

Source · Company press releases — Helsinki Stock Exchange listed companies, Q1 2026

All other companies

Nordea Bank announced in March that approximately 1,500 employees could be impacted by workforce restructuring, linked to a EUR 190 million restructuring provision and a EUR 600 million annual gross cost-reduction target by 2030, accounting for more than 50% of the quarter's total announced potential. Strip Nordea out, and Q1's remaining ~1,486 positions reflect a broad but measured wave of targeted right-sizing across nine sectors.

That distinction matters because Nordea's motivations are entirely different from, say, Netum or Solteq. Nordea posted operating profit of EUR 1.6 billion in Q1, up 2%, delivered a 15.4% return on equity, and launched a EUR 500 million share buyback alongside the restructuring announcement. The EUR 190 million provision was excluded from the 2026 outlook as an item affecting comparability. This is not a company in distress; it is a profitable bank executing a deliberate capability transition toward its 2030 strategy, framing the exercise explicitly as a "skill shift" rather than a headcount reduction. The market should read the two halves of Q1, the Nordea half and the rest, as qualitatively distinct events.

Confirmed redundancies & Q1 financial performance

Finnish labor law requires companies to state a maximum figure at the outset of change negotiations under Chapter 3, Section 19 of the Act on Co-operation within Undertakings. That figure is a legal ceiling, not a forecast. Nine concluded negotiations in Q1 produced final confirmed data: the total across those nine was 357 confirmed positions against a combined announced maximum of 514, a realisation rate of approximately 69%. The spread inside that average is instructive.

Figure 04 · Concluded Negotiations

Announced maximum vs confirmed final

Among the nine concluded negotiations, only Lamor Corporation fully confirmed its announced number.

Source · Company press releases · N=9 concluded only · avg. realisation ~69%

Confirmed final

Avg. realisation ~69% · ink = at/above average · red = below · source: company press releases, Q1 2026

Lamor Corporation confirmed exactly 15 of 15 (100%), with Q1 revenue already down 24.9% to EUR 14.3 million and EBIT negative at EUR -0.4 million, a deterioration of 125.6%.

Etteplan confirmed 63 of 70 (90%), its numbers validated by revenue down 4.6% and EBIT collapsing 47.8% to EUR 2.2 million.

Wulff-Yhtiöt confirmed only 6 of 34 (18%) — the lowest realisation in the dataset — while reporting net sales up 16% and EBIT up 666% to EUR 2.5 million.

Posti Group reported net sales down 1.3% to EUR 352.5 million and adjusted EBIT of EUR 6.5 million — a small absolute figure for a company of that scale. Addressed letter volumes fell 24.2%. The 121 confirmed redundancies sit within a EUR 40 million, three-year savings programme.

Netum Group reported the sharpest deterioration of any company in the dataset: revenue fell 25.2% to EUR 8.4 million and EBITA collapsed 86.5% to EUR 0.2 million — a 1.8% EBITA margin. CEO Repe Harmanen described Q1 as “transitional,” pointing to prior-year project completions. The 30 confirmed redundancies were initiated in December 2025 and concluded in February 2026 — well before the Q1 report.

Solteq reported comparable revenue down 7.5% to EUR 11.2 million and a comparable operating result of EUR -0.3 million, deteriorating from EUR +0.1 million a year earlier. The company is simultaneously refinancing a EUR 18.7 million bond maturing in October 2026 — adding a balance-sheet pressure layer to the operational one.

Digia grew net sales 4.9% to EUR 56.4 million but EBITA fell 28.2% to EUR 3.3 million. Notably, EUR 0.7 million in non-recurring change negotiation expenses and EUR 0.7 million in customer project provisions are directly visible in the Q1 income statement. Digia confirmed 31 redundancies at a 62% realisation rate — part of a deliberate transition toward its 2026–2028 strategy focused on productisation, AI, and international expansion.

Rebl Group reported revenue up 5.9% to EUR 26.5 million and EBITDA improving to EUR +1.3 million from EUR -0.2 million. Operating loss narrowed to EUR -1.1 million from EUR -2.4 million. A caveat applies: the Q1 2026 change negotiations were conducted by its subsidiary PunaMusta Oy, not the Rebl Group parent. PunaMusta confirmed 9 redundancies in print production alongside 8 new permanent digital hires — a net reduction of just 1 role. The parent’s improving financials reflect the consolidated group; the workforce action belongs to one specific subsidiary unit.

Nanoform achieved record Q1 2026 revenue, up 45% to EUR 1.3 million, with a 94% gross margin. EBITDA improved to EUR -3.0 million from EUR -4.9 million. Cash position was EUR 20.5 million. The company secured its first exclusivity deal for its biologics technology. And yet Nanoform confirmed 49 redundancies — a 22% headcount reduction — alongside potential temporary part-time layoffs for remaining staff. This is burn-rate management by a pre-profit company extending its runway to commercialisation, not a sign of business failure.

The pattern is consistent: genuine financial pressure converts announced maximums into confirmed cuts at high rates; companies with operational flexibility convert far less.

Realisation Rate Detail

Company-by-company realisation rates

Tap any row for the financial context behind the number. Ink bars are at or above the ~69% average; red bars fall below.

Rebl Group (PunaMusta)

Hiring and Workforce Expansion —Three press releases included hiring or workforce expansion announcements during Q1 2026:

Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (March) planned to create approximately 130 new positions globally, disclosed in the same press release as its up-to-205-position reduction announcement within its Finance & Control unit. The restructuring includes establishing a new internal service centre in Gdańsk, Poland, complementing an existing centre in Vaasa, Finland, reflecting deliberate workforce reshaping rather than a net headcount cut.

Rebl Group Oyj / PunaMusta Oy (February): as part of change negotiations covering 65 employees across Joensuu, Tampere, and Turku production sites, the company confirmed that planned measures would likely create new positions in other roles or locations, alongside a maximum of 13 redundancies. Projected annual savings from the reorganisation are capped at €0.8 million. This signals selective, targeted expansion within a broader operational streamlining.

Toivo Group Oyj (February) announced a standalone hiring drive with no specific headcount figure disclosed, citing 20% annual growth guidance and several new project agreements, launches, and sales in the past year. Active recruitment is underway in financial administration and real estate development, with further openings expected in spring 2026, notable given the difficult employment environment in Finland's construction sector.

Industrials and IT: the same diagnosis, different surgeons

The IT & Services sector has the highest confirmed-to-potential ratio at 48% (94 of 195 confirmed), as three of its four active negotiations concluded within the quarter. Industrial Equipment & Automation, despite ranking second by potential impact (700 across four companies), has only Etteplan’s 63 confirmed positions in Q1 2026.

Valmet's Q1 negotiations, which initially covered an estimated 355 roles in Sweden and Poland, were concluded in May 2026 with measures affecting approximately 350 roles, while a separate process covering approximately 2,400 employees in Finland resulted in temporary layoffs from June to December 2026. Negotiations initiated by KONE and Wärtsilä remain ongoing, with final outcomes yet to be announced.

Figure 05 · Sector Analysis

Announced potential impact by sector

Figures represent maximum estimates at negotiation initiation.

Source · Company press releases — Helsinki Stock Exchange, Jan–Mar 2026

All other sectors

Industrials and IT: the financial Logic behind the negotiations

IT & Services posts the highest confirmed-to-potential ratio at 48%. Industrial Equipment & Automation, second by potential impact, had only Etteplan's 63 confirmed positions in Q1 — operational dependencies carry longer negotiation timelines.

Four industrial companies — Valmet, Wärtsilä, KONE, and Etteplan — together announced 700 potential positions in Q1. As of March 31, only Etteplan's 63 confirmed cuts were final; the other three negotiations remained open. Their pace reflects the operational dependencies of industrial restructuring: plant footprint decisions and supply chain reorganizations carry longer negotiation timelines than headcount rebalancing in a software firm.

That dynamic was subsequently illustrated by Valmet, which concluded its negotiations in May 2026. The company confirmed measures affecting approximately 350 roles across Sweden and Poland as part of manufacturing footprint adjustments, alongside temporary layoffs of around 2,400 employees in Finland through the end of 2026.

Valmet's picture is the most pressured: net sales grew 5% to EUR 1.24 billion, but orders received fell 18% and EPS dropped 44%. Its Sweden and Poland manufacturing reviews — up to 355 positions across Sundsvall, Gothenburg, and Jelenia Góra — target EUR 20 million in annual net savings as the company draws down its existing order book to hold guidance.

KONE's situation is sharper still in its divergence: Q1 sales rose 1.3% to EUR 2.71 billion, adjusted EBIT climbed 5% to EUR 293.6 million, and the company raised full-year guidance — while simultaneously negotiating 840 reductions in its Hyvinkää factory covering supply chain and R&D roles. The logic is stated directly: due to structural changes in the New Building Solutions market and to support the company's transition toward Service and Modernization.

Etteplan's announcement cited both geopolitical tensions causing project postponements and structural changes influenced by artificial intelligence, noting that AI-driven services already accounted for 6% of revenue.

Wärtsilä is the most instructive case of all: total order intake rose 10% to EUR 2.1 billion, the order book reached an all-time high of EUR 8.9 billion, net sales remained stable at EUR 1.6 billion, and comparable operating result increased 16% to EUR 199 million (12.8% margin). The company is reducing up to 205 Finance & Control roles globally while simultaneously creating approximately 130 new roles through a Gdańsk shared service centre — a net headcount impact of roughly 75. These are not layoffs; they are capability substitutions.

Figure 06 · Sector Comparison

Industrial Equipment vs IT & Services — realisation

IT firms concluded and confirmed faster. Industrial negotiations remained open at quarter-end due to operational complexity.

Source · Company press releases · Listeds analysis · Q1 2026

Confirmed (Q1)

Confirmed (post-Q1)

Confirmed workforce impact

IT services moved faster and more completely. Four companies — Digia, Vincit, Solteq, and Netum — announced a combined 195 potential positions, and three of the four concluded negotiations within the same quarter. The confirmed total across the three was 94, a 48% confirmed-to-potential ratio — the best in the dataset. Vincit confirmed 21 terminations in April 2026 out of 45 positions in scope (47%). The contrast with industrials is structural: IT workforces require no factory closures, no supply chain unwinding, and no equipment retooling. A software firm can redesign its headcount in weeks.

Solteq reported comparable revenue down 7.5% to EUR 11.2 million and a comparable operating result of EUR −0.3 million, deteriorating from EUR +0.1 million a year earlier. The company is simultaneously refinancing a EUR 18.7 million bond maturing in October 2026 — adding a balance-sheet pressure layer to the operational one.

Netum's situation was the most acute: revenue fell 25.2% to EUR 8.4 million and EBITA collapsed 86.5% to EUR 0.2 million (a 1.8% margin). Its 30 confirmed cuts — initiated in December 2025 and concluded in February 2026 — were resolved before the Q1 earnings were even published.

Vincit pointed explicitly to rapid artificial intelligence transformation as a driver. The company saw revenue fall 15.2% to EUR 16.4 million. The notable data point is adjusted EBITA: it held stable at EUR 0.3 million (1.8% margin). The 21 confirmed terminations in April reduced total headcount by approximately 40 during the first quarter. The restructuring is protecting margins even as the topline falls.

The AI framing across multiple IT announcements is notable — and worth treating skeptically. Whether AI is genuinely causing these companies to require fewer engineers, or whether "AI transformation" is the Q1 2026 equivalent of "digital transformation" as a restructuring rationale, is a question the realisation rates partly answer. Vincit's 21 confirmed terminations out of 45 positions in scope (47%) and Digia's 31 out of 50 (62%) suggest more optionality than existential necessity.

From defence to strategy: what changed from Q4 2025

The volume of change negotiation announcements increased significantly in Q1 2026. The dataset contains 25 announcements in Q1 2026 compared with 18 in Q4 2025, indicating a broader wave of workforce consultations across Nordic listed companies.

Figure 07 · Quarter-on-Quarter Shift

Key metrics — Q4 2025 vs Q1 2026

Companies negotiating

+46%

Announced max positions

~3,280

~2,986

−9%

~1,577

~357

−77.3%

Avg. realisation rate

88%

69%

−19pp

Companies with hiring signals

↑ new

Source · Q4 2025 data and Q1 2026 announcements · Listeds

Source · Listeds · Q4 2025 and Q1 2026

While cost savings and efficiency remained the dominant rationale in both quarters, Q1 2026 saw a noticeable shift toward strategic transformation. Companies increasingly linked negotiations to long-term competitiveness, operating model renewals, artificial intelligence, and capability changes rather than solely to short-term market weakness.

Sector activity also changed. Information technology remained one of the most active sectors, but Q1 2026 saw a broader spread across industrial automation, environmental services, banking, food and beverages, logistics, and commercial printing. Commercial printing and media services emerged as one of the most active sectors in Q1, while industrial and manufacturing-related companies continued to account for a large share of announced measures.

Overall, the focus evolved from responding to challenging market conditions in Q4 2025 toward preparing organizations for strategic, technological, and operational change in Q1 2026.

Trend Comparison

The 19-point realisation-rate drop

The fall from 88% to 69% is the most structurally significant number in the dataset.

Q4 2025

Q1 2026

The Q2 confirmation wave

Seven of the ten negotiations left open at the end of Q1 concluded between 1 April and 21 May 2026. The confirmed impact across those seven is 604 roles — plus a separate Valmet process covering temporary layoffs for approximately 2,400 employees in Finland through the end of 2026.

Post-Quarter Update

The Q2 confirmation wave

Seven of the ten negotiations open at the end of Q1 concluded between 1 April and 21 May 2026. The confirmed impact across those seven is 604 roles — plus a separate Valmet process covering ~2,400 temporary layoffs in Finland through end-2026.

Concluded 1 Apr · 41 redundancies + 28 role changes

EUR 2.5m annual savings from 2027. Production-oriented → customer-focused model. A subsidiary case — parent financials don't explain the action.

Concluded 9 Apr · 11 positions, all offered relocation

Frozen-food exit was the point, not the headcount. Kokkola factory closed. Parent Fodelia revenue +9.1% — clean subsidiary surgery.

Apetit

Concluded 16 Apr · 21 positions · 100% realisation

Reviewed frozen-pizza production at Pudasjärvi to improve long-term viability and avoid future investment needs. A financial-pressure case.

Concluded 17 Apr · 21 of 45 (47% realisation)

Revenue −15.2%, adjusted EBITA held at EUR 0.3m. AI-driven transformation cited. Margins protected as the topline falls — optionality confirmed.

Concluded 17 Apr · 95 confirmed positions

Structural reorganisation into a function-based model; a new division targeting data-centre, energy, and industrial construction. Genuine operating-model change.

Valmet (Sweden & Poland)

Concluded 21 May · ~350 roles (99%) · Sundsvall closed

A separate Finnish process added ~2,400 temporary layoffs through Dec 2026, targeting EUR 8m in 2026 savings. Drawing down an order book, not managing a dip.

The pattern from Q1 holds. The two subsidiary cases — Grano under Panostaja and Feelia under Fodelia — both concluded cleanly at the subsidiary level, with outcomes that had no meaningful relationship to their parent companies' consolidated results. Feelia's 11 Kokkola employees were all offered relocation to Pyhäntä; the frozen food exit was the point, not the headcount. Grano confirmed 41 redundancies alongside 28 job description changes, with EUR 2.5 million in annual savings targeted from 2027.

Valmet is the most significant confirmation. The Sweden and Poland manufacturing process produced approximately 350 permanent reductions — 99% of the announced maximum — including the full closure of the Sundsvall site. A separate Finnish process, initiated in late April, added temporary layoffs for 2,400 employees across packaging, paper, and pulp units through December 2026, targeting EUR 8 million in 2026 savings. This is a company drawing down an order book, not managing a temporary dip.

YIT's 95 confirmed positions came alongside a structural reorganisation into a function-based model and a new division targeting data centre, energy, and industrial construction projects, suggesting the workforce action was genuinely tied to an operating model change rather than a cost squeeze alone.

Apetit and Vincit illustrate two different forms of financial pressure. Both negotiations concluded in April 2026, but their underlying drivers differed. Apetit's process concluded exactly at the announced maximum, resulting in 21 reductions as the company reviewed its frozen pizza business, sought to improve long-term viability, and avoid substantial future investment needs at its Pudasjärvi facility. Vincit, by contrast, confirmed 21 terminations against an announced estimate of 45 positions as it adjusted staffing to weaker market conditions and an industry increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. Neither case was large enough to alter the overall numbers materially, but together they demonstrate how companies facing demand pressure are pursuing targeted workforce adjustments rather than broad-based restructuring.

Three negotiations remain open: Nordea (1,500), KONE (840), and Wärtsilä (205). Together they account for approximately 2,545 positions — the bulk of Q1's remaining announced maximum still unresolved. Most of these positions sit within the strategic-strength typology, where realisation rates would be expected to land well below the dataset average if the pattern observed in completed negotiations continues.

Three negotiations remain open

Nordea2030 strategy capability shift · EUR 190m provision booked

1,500

KONEHyvinkää factory · supply chain and R&D roles

840

WärtsiläFinance & Control global · Gdańsk service centre being built

205

Dual Motion

Together the three open negotiations account for approximately 2,545 positions — the bulk of Q1's remaining announced maximum still unresolved, and the majority of them sitting in the strategic-strength typology where realisation rates are expected to land well below the dataset average.

Five ways Finnish listed companies restructured in Q1 2026

Typology 01 — Financial Pressure

Cut because the numbers demanded it

Revenue falling, margins eroding or negative. The Q1 earnings release validates a decision already in motion. High realisation rates confirm these were not exploratory — the ceiling became the floor.

Rev −24.9% · EBIT turned negative

All 15 positions confirmed (100%). Global operating-model restructuring underway.

Rev −4.6% · EBIT −47.8% · guidance lowered

63 of 70 confirmed. Geopolitical project delays and AI structural shift both cited.

Netum Group

Rev −25.2% · EBITA −86.5% · 1.8% margin

30 confirmed. Cuts concluded Feb 2026 — before the Q1 report, fully validated by it.

Rev −7.5% · operating result negative

33 confirmed. Simultaneously refinancing a EUR 18.7m bond due Oct 2026 — dual pressure.

Posti Group

Rev −1.3% · mail volumes −24.2%

121 of 172 confirmed. Part of a EUR 40m three-year savings programme.

Apetit · Valmet · Digia · Vincit

Margins declining across all four

Apetit op. result −160%. Valmet orders −18%, EPS −44%. Digia EBITA −28.2%. Vincit rev −15.2%.

When financial pressure is genuine, companies follow through. Realisation rates averaging ~80% confirm announced maximums functioned as targets, not ceilings. These are distress signals, not strategy statements.

For nine companies, the earnings release validated a decision already in motion. Revenue was falling, margins were eroding, and realisation rates averaging 80% confirm these were not exploratory announcements — the ceiling became the floor. Netum's EBITA collapsed 86.5% to a 1.8% margin. Etteplan's EBIT fell 47.8% and guidance was lowered. Solteq posted a negative operating result while refinancing a maturing bond. Valmet's orders fell 18% and EPS dropped 44% — the revenue growth was real, but the forward pipeline was not. When financial pressure is genuine, companies follow through. These announcements should be read as distress signals, not strategy statements.

Typology 02 — Strategic Strength

Cut despite strong financials

Profitable, growing, or cash-generative at the time of announcement. These restructurings are capital-enabled, not operationally compelled. Only a company with earnings stability can absorb a EUR 190m provision as an item affecting comparability.

Op. profit EUR 1.6bn · ROE 15.4%

EUR 500m buyback active. Up to 1,500 roles — a 2030 capability shift, not crisis response.

Sales +1.3% · Adj. EBIT +5%

Full-year guidance raised the same quarter 840 Hyvinkää positions were announced.

Wulff Group

Rev +16% · EBIT +666%

Only 6 of 34 confirmed — 18%, the lowest in the dataset. A cautious review from strength.

Nanoform

Rev +45% · gross margin 94%

Pre-profit, cash EUR 20.5m. 49 confirmed — burn-rate management to extend runway.

Rev +2% · net loss fair-value driven

95 confirmed. The net loss is fair-value movement, not operational. New division created alongside.

Low realisation rates confirm these announcements carry optionality, not necessity. Distressed companies don't have the luxury of a strategic review. The balance sheet is the prerequisite.

Five companies restructured from a position of clear financial health — making their workforce decisions a choice, not a necessity. Nordea posted EUR 1.6 billion in Q1 operating profit, launched a EUR 500 million buyback, and simultaneously booked EUR 190 million in restructuring costs as an item affecting comparability. KONE raised full-year guidance in the same quarter it initiated negotiations over 840 Hyvinkää positions. Wulff confirmed just 6 of 34 positions — an 18% realisation rate, the lowest in the dataset — consistent with a cautious review from a company whose EBIT had just risen 666%. Low realisation rates are the tell. These announcements carry optionality. Only profitable companies can afford a strategic restructuring. The balance sheet is the prerequisite.

Typology 03 — Dual Motion

Cutting and hiring simultaneously

The gross headcount number is almost irrelevant. What matters is which capabilities are being removed and which are being created. These companies are not shrinking — they are rotating.

Order book all-time high EUR 8.9bn · comparable operating result +16% to EUR 199m (12.8% margin) · Vaasa capacity +35% underway

Removing

≤ 205

Finance & Control, globally

Creating

~130

Gdańsk shared service centre

~75 net reduction — a rounding error against an EUR 8.9bn order book. The composition shift is the point.

Subsidiary of Rebl Group · parent rev +5.9%, EBITDA turning positive · print volumes declining at subsidiary level — parent financials do not explain this

Net reduction of 1 role. The change negotiation is the instrument of capability transformation, not reduction.

Track capability rotation, not headcount. The same legal mechanism is being used to recompose the workforce. These companies are not retreating. They are recomposing.

Two entities announced reductions and additions in the same quarter. The gross headcount number is irrelevant — what matters is what is being removed and what is being built in its place. Wärtsilä, with an all-time high order book of EUR 8.9 billion, cut up to 205 Finance & Control roles globally while creating approximately 130 new roles in a Gdańsk shared service centre and expanding Vaasa production capacity by 35%. PunaMusta exited 9 print roles and hired 8 digital roles — a net reduction of one. These companies are not shrinking. They are recomposing. The change negotiation process is the instrument of transformation, not reduction.

Typology 04 — Subsidiary Surgery

Parent financials don't explain the action

The negotiation happens at subsidiary level; the financial reporting consolidates at parent level. Reading the parent's results to understand the subsidiary's workforce decision is a category error — they share a filing, not a cause.

Feelia Oy

Subsidiary of Fodelia Oyj

Parent — Fodelia

Rev +9.1% · op. profit +17.3% · Feelia brand +15.5%

Subsidiary — Feelia

Kokkola plant closed · frozen food exited entirely

11 positions — portfolio surgery. Exit frozen food to focus on Pyhäntä ready meals. Parent growth is irrelevant.

Grano Oy

Portfolio company of Panostaja Oyj

Parent — Panostaja

Rev −8% · op. profit −EUR 0.9m · partly Grano Diesel disposal

Subsidiary — Grano

Strategic model shift · production → customer-focused

41 redundancies + 28 role changes — model repositioning. The parent's decline has a different cause.

Subsidiary of Rebl Group · see Typology 03

Classified under Dual Motion for its simultaneous cut-and-hire structure, PunaMusta is also a subsidiary case. Rebl Group's improving financials have no explanatory relationship to PunaMusta's print-production reductions, which belong to the subsidiary's own market context.

Identify which legal entity filed the notice — and read that entity's financials, not the parent's. Parent-level results actively mislead in every case here.

Two subsidiaries conducted negotiations whose logic was entirely separate from their parent group's financial trajectory. Fodelia reported revenue growth of 9.1% — yet subsidiary Feelia closed its Kokkola factory and exited frozen food entirely, all 11 employees offered relocation to Pyhäntä. Panostaja's consolidated decline was partly driven by a disposed asset — yet subsidiary Grano's 69 confirmed positions reflect a strategic shift from production-oriented to customer-focused, not parent distress. PunaMusta Oy, classified under Dual Motion for its simultaneous cut-and-hire structure, is also a subsidiary case: Rebl Group's improving parent financials have no direct explanatory relationship to PunaMusta's print production reductions, which belong to the subsidiary's own market context. Parent-level financials actively mislead in these cases. The analyst who reads consolidated accounts to interpret subsidiary workforce actions reaches the wrong conclusion every time. The discipline required is simple: identify which legal entity filed the notice, and read that entity's financials.

Typology 05 — Pure Expansion

The only hiring announcement in the quarter

No redundancy component. No ceiling declared. One company in nineteen filed a workforce announcement that contained only growth — and its CEO used words no other CEO in this dataset used: "positive market signals."

Toivo Group

Residential real-estate developer · Helsinki Stock Exchange · Q1 2026

"Positive market signals" — CEO Markus Myllymäki. 8 new apartment contracts signed; 15 apartments entered construction in Q1. The 54% operating-profit decline reflects investment-phase costs, not deterioration.

Q4 2025 — pure hiring announcements

Every workforce press release in Q4 2025 contained a redundancy component.

Q1 2026 — pure hiring announcements

Toivo is the only company of nineteen to file a workforce announcement with no redundancy component whatsoever.

One data point — but the comparison is the signal. Q4 2025 had zero companies in this category. Direction matters more than magnitude. The question Q2 will answer is whether this remains an outlier or the beginning of a pattern.

Toivo Group filed the only Q1 2026 workforce press release with no redundancy component. Revenue grew 6%, equity grew 5% to EUR 73.9 million, and CEO Markus Myllymäki described "positive market signals" — language that appears nowhere else in the dataset. The operating profit decline reflects investment-phase costs, not deterioration. The significance is the comparison: Q4 2025 contained zero companies in this typology. Q1 2026 contains one. That direction matters more than the magnitude.

Restructuring without retreat

The headline from Q1 2026 is misleading. Nineteen companies, nearly 3,000 potential positions, February packed with press releases — it reads like accelerating distress. The data says otherwise.

Strip out Nordea and the remaining 1,486 positions represent a measured, distributed wave of adjustment. More revealing is the realisation rate: it fell from 88% in Q4 2025 to 69% in Q1 2026. That 19-point drop is the most structurally significant number in the dataset. When companies follow through at 88%, they had no choice. When they follow through at 69%, a meaningful share of what was announced was optionality, not a firm target. The difference is the difference between responding to a crisis and preparing for a change.

The industrial companies make this concrete. KONE raised full-year guidance and posted a 5% EBIT increase. Wärtsilä reported an all-time-high order book of EUR 8.9 billion. Both were simultaneously in active change negotiations. These are companies using a period of earnings strength to remove inefficiencies they couldn't afford to address when markets were softer. The industrial order book is funding this restructuring wave, not triggering it.

The AI framing deserves scepticism. Four companies cited artificial intelligence as a structural driver. Etteplan confirmed 90% of its announced positions — a rate that implies a firm target. Vincit confirmed 47%. The divergence is the tell: AI as a restructuring rationale is genuine in some cases and narrative cover in others. The realisation rate is the most honest signal available, and it doesn't support a uniform story.

What Q1 2026 actually contains is five structurally different phenomena — financial distress, strategic optionality, capability rotation, subsidiary surgery, and one pure hiring announcement — all processed through the same legal mechanism and filed in the same quarter. The word "restructuring" is doing too much work. Finnish listed companies in Q1 2026 were not, for the most part, retreating. They were recomposing. The question Q2 will answer is whether enough new hiring has begun alongside the confirmed cuts to make that word stick.

Monthly Leadership Moves

September's finance seats started filling from inside

Oct 9, 2026

Through August, every incoming chief financial officer at a Helsinki issuer since December 2025 already held the title somewhere else. In September, Vincit promoted from its own controlling team and UPM made WISA's interim finance chief permanent. The lateral market did not close: Tieto and Relais both hired sitting finance chiefs, and Terveystalo is now searching for one.

Listeds had recorded at least ten CFO changes across Nasdaq Helsinki and First North between December 2025 and August 2026, and not one incoming finance chief was taking the job for the first time. Last month's roundup ended on whether September would break that run. It did, at the smaller end of the market.

The month's second signal was structural. Viking Line, Kalmar, Terveystalo and the planned UPM and Sappi graphic paper joint venture each redrew an organization in September and named the people to run it. Board-level change stayed thin, and most of it was nomination-board formation for the 2027 annual general meetings rather than turnover in the boardroom itself.

Vincit and WISA broke the lateral run with internal finance appointments

The Digia and Vincit chain that opened in August closed in September. Vincit named a successor on September 01, and went inside to do it. Paula Kuittinen, Head of Management Accounting and Business Control since March 2026 and before that more than 12 years in finance roles at CGI, most recently she has been the Finance Director, now becoming the CFO on November 1. "It is great to be able to appoint our new CFO from within the company," said chief executive Julius Manni.

On September 18, UPM's board appointed Lasse von Hertzen, previously WISA's interim CFO, its permanent Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective when the plywood demerger completes. That finishes a WISA leadership team named in full by the parent's board, with trading expected from November 2.

LapWall took a third route. Tuomo Riihonen's employment ended on September 24, and the next day the company named Tiina Määttä Chief Financial Officer and Legal Officer from October 1. Her record runs through finance and legal advisory roles at Talenom and Greenstep and the chief executive seat at Kymsol Group.

Kempower named Lasse Hatinen on September 9, bringing more than 15 years of finance leadership in listed industrial companies. He joins by March 1, 2027 at the latest, from Metso where he has served as Senior Vice President, Group Controller. Juha Jaatinen, interim since August 13, holds the seat until then.

Larger issuers kept buying finance chiefs who already hold the title

The lateral market remains the default above small cap. Tieto appointed Juuso Pajunen from Terveystalo on September 16, and Terveystalo opened its search the same day. Relais Group appointed Joonas Mäkipeska on September 14 from Technopolis, where he is Chief Financial and Strategy Officer, after CFO roles at Holiday Club Resorts, Sponda and ALD Automotive. Chief executive Christian Gebauer framed the brief as "continued profitable growth, supported by financial discipline, strong cash conversion and investment discipline."

Stora Enso moved the other way on the same theme: on September 17 CFO Niclas Rosenlew was named deputy chief executive to President & CEO Hans Sohlström while keeping the finance role. Tallink appointed Armin Penner as its new CFO on September 8. He has worked for more than six years as CFO and Management Board Member of Circle K Eesti and has also served as CFO of Euroapteek and Ragn-Sells Eesti.

SSH went outside for its chief executive, Arvo went to its own board

September's two listed-issuer CEO appointments took opposite routes. SSH Communications Security named Lars Bell from Omada, where he was Chief Customer Officer and interim chief executive, effective October 1. The share rose 49.5% in the five sessions to September 7. Bell inherits a business whose second-quarter revenue recovered to EUR 5.7 million, up 6.8%, while EBITDA fell 40.7%, and he starts on the same day as CFO Cristian Arias. The third-quarter report will be the first one a rebuilt executive team owns.

Arvo Sijoitusosuuskunta named Teemu Kokko, a member of its board of directors since 2021, deputy chief executive from December and chief executive from April 1, 2027. The selection ran through a nomination committee drawn from the cooperative's supervisory board, one level above the board Kokko sits on. He inherits first-half operating profit of EUR 8.5 million against EUR 6.5 million a year earlier, most of the step-up traced to an approximately EUR 6.9 million gain on the HANZA exit.

Reorganizations, not departures, produced most management-team changes

The month's largest management-team changes came attached to new structures. Kalmar announced plans on September 3 to simplify its operating model by combining divisions. Terveystalo said on September 4 it will report in four segments from 2027, Healthcare Services, Oral Health, Public Partnerships and Sweden, and named Ville Pesonen senior vice president for oral health. Viking Line renewed its management structure on September 8 and established a Viking Leadership Team. UPM and Sappi nominated Gunnar Eberhardt and Stephen Blyth to lead their planned graphic paper joint venture on September 8, and the wider management team on September 14.

Technology seats moved alongside. Aspocomp named Ville Raatikainen Chief Engineering and Technology Officer from January 1, 2027, the second outside hire to its team since July, timed to the phased commissioning of its expanded Oulu plant.

Directors moving into executive roles drove September's committee changes

Only one board chair left. Kari Syrjänen resigned as chair of Biohit on September 2. The two committee changes that followed shared a cause: a director taking an executive job. Tulikivi's audit committee chair Niko Haavisto left the board after becoming CFO of Fiskars, and Panu Paappanen became the chairperson on September 14. At Olvi, director Tarmo Noop left the audit committee to run the Estonian subsidiary A. Le Coq on an interim basis, and board chair Nora Hortling replaced him.

September split the finance pipeline by company size

September broke the lateral CFO run, but only at the smaller end of the market: Vincit and WISA filled their finance seats from inside, while Tieto and Relais kept hiring sitting finance chiefs. At chief executive level, Arvo promoted from its own board and SSH went outside. Most management-team changes followed reorganizations rather than departures. On boards, the committee changes came from directors moving into executive roles, and most other activity was nomination-board formation for 2027. With interim finance cover at Kempower and Relais and an open seat at Terveystalo, the next test is whether larger issuers start filling finance seats from within.

Executive Intelligence

Sanoma's family stake moved. So did its nomination committee.

Sep 22, 2026

A family transfer twenty years in the making moved 12.18% of Sanoma into a single company. Eight days later, the body that proposes Sanoma's next board had two pension insurers sitting on it — and the family branch that used to hold half its seats held one.

On 9 September 2026, Sanoma disclosed that Robin Langenskiöld and Rafaela Seppälä had transferred their entire shareholdings — 19,928,117 shares, 12.18% of the company — to RR & Co Ab, a newly formed vehicle owned by their children and grandchildren. The price was €7.2428 a share, €144,335,366 in total, executed on Nasdaq Helsinki. The stated purpose was to hold the family's stake under one roof and to avoid, in the filing's words, "avoidable fragmentation of ownership".

Read as a €144 million exit, the trade is misread. Nothing left the family.

The staircase and the cliff

The two siblings arrived at the same destination by opposite routes.

Robin Langenskiöld held 12,273,371 Sanoma shares in July 2006 and 12,273,371 in August 2026 — the same figure in all 239 monthly snapshots of the Listeds register. His percentage drifted from 7.70% to 7.50%, but that was dilution, not disposal. His only change of position came in March 2014, when Antti Herlin added 2,706,979 shares in a single month and moved him from second-largest shareholder to third.

The staircase and the cliff

Sanoma shares held, million · year-end 2006–2025, then the September 2026 transfer

Robin LangenskiöldRafaela Seppälä

Eleven names, one family branch

His sister began at 12,273,370 shares — one share fewer, the signature of a divided inheritance. Her holding then fell four times, and each fall is matched, to the share, by increases in holders carrying her family's names:

Month	Seppälä	Matched increases
Mar 2008	−600,000	Alex Noyer +300,000 · Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin +300,000
Dec 2011	−1,400,000	Alex Noyer +700,000 · Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin +700,000
Mar 2023	−1,246,880	Alex Noyer +623,440 · four Bernardin-Aubouin holders, +155,860 each
May 2023	−1,371,744	Alex Noyer +685,872 · four Bernardin-Aubouin holders, +171,468 each

Four transfers, 4,618,624 shares, each split into exact halves between two branches of descendants — and 12,273,370 less 4,618,624 leaves 7,654,746, the holding she transferred in September. A register records positions rather than counterparties, so the pairing is inference rather than disclosed fact. It is a strong one: a seller's decrease matching two buyers' increases to the single share, four times across fifteen years, is not a market coincidence.

So Seppälä handed her stake down across eighteen years and five tranches. Langenskiöld handed his down in one afternoon, after two decades of not moving a share.

What the consolidation was fixing

By August 2026 this one branch of the family occupied eleven separate lines of Sanoma's register, holding 28,241,098 shares between them — 17.24% of the company, spread across three generations and four surnames. The September transfer gathered 12.18% of that into a single vehicle. The remaining 5.06% stays where it was, held individually by descendants.

% of Sanoma shares held, 31 August 2026

After: the five largest holdings

That is the argument the filing makes without spelling it out. The fragmentation it sets out to prevent is visible in the register, name by name, and it is the direct product of eighteen years of orderly succession. Handing a stake down in installments preserves a family's economics and slowly dismantles its ability to act as one shareholder. RR & Co Ab is the correction — and the reason the larger position, Langenskiöld's untouched 12,273,371 shares, was never handed down at all until a vehicle existed to receive it.

The seat changes

Finland runs board nominations through a shareholders' nomination committee: a body of large owners, sitting outside the board, that proposes the board's size, composition and remuneration to the Annual General Meeting.

On that basis the committee that prepared the proposals for Sanoma's 2026 AGM, published on 13 March 2026, had four members: Juhani Mäkinen for the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Antti Herlin for Holding Manutas, and Langenskiöld and Seppälä in their own right. Two of the four seats belonged to one family branch. No pension insurer had a seat.

Once the shares moved, neither sibling owned any. On 17 September 2026 Sanoma disclosed that both had stepped down, and that under the committee's charter the next largest shareholders as of 31 May 2026 — Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company and Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company — were entitled to appoint representatives. The committee additionally invited RR & Co Ab, as Sanoma's new third-largest shareholder, to appoint a member for the rest of the term.

The committee now reads:

Member	Represents
Juhani Mäkinen	Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation
Antti Herlin	Holding Manutas
Hanna Kaskela	Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company
Annika Ekman	Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company
Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin	RR & Co Ab

% of Sanoma shares · after the 9 September 2026 transfer

Two of four became one of five

Four seats became five. The family branch went from two of four to one of five. Two of the five now belong to pension insurers, in a committee that had none when it drafted this year's board proposals.

Share of nomination committee seats, by the owner each member represents

Erkko FoundationHerlin (Holding Manutas)Langenskiöld–Seppälä familyPension insurers

Source: Sanoma releases

The seat that remains is held by Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin, one of the two descendants whose register lines grew in step with Seppälä's, in every one of the four transfers from 2008 onward. The installment plan produced the person who now represents the consolidated stake.

Two register lines, One committee seat

Nothing here was a loss of control in the ownership sense, and none of it was forced. It is the ordinary arithmetic of a charter that allocates seats by register position: consolidate two lines into one, and you consolidate two seats into one. The shareholders' nomination committee appointed on the register as at 31 May 2027 will present its proposals for the following year's AGM in January 2028. Sebastian Langenskiöld, named in the transaction filing as a person closely associated with RR & Co Ab, continues to sit on the board itself.

Executive Intelligence

Ilmarinen is the Defence Owner of the Year 2026

Sep 21, 2026

Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company was named Defence Owner of the Year 2026 on Monday evening at Valkoinen Sali in Helsinki, at the first Listeds Investor Event – Defence. The award is new, and so is the thing it measures. Not how much an institution owns, but what it has done with the ownership.

Finland has prizes for companies and prizes for chief executives. Owners have gone unrewarded.

The jury scored what Ilmarinen did, not what it held

The jury was chaired by Tiina Olkkonen, founder and chair of IR Partners, and included Sanna Andersson of Euroclear Nordics, Kyösti Jurvelin of Talouselämä and Klaus Ilmonen of Hannes Snellman.

Three things decided it. Ilmarinen anchored Reaktor's listing earlier this year and is now the company's largest institutional owner. It joined a funding round for the unlisted ICEYE. And it sits on the shareholders' nomination boards of roughly 40 Finnish listed companies every year, which is a direct lever on who ends up in those boardrooms.

That last point is the one the jury kept returning to. Defence and dual-use companies are growing quickly, and the competence their boards need is moving just as fast.

Eight companies pitched, five of them listed

Gofore, Kesla, Savox Communications and Aspocomp Group, all on Nasdaq Helsinki, and Betolar from Nasdaq First North pitched the defence and dual-use side of their businesses to a room of professional investors. Audicin, Njord and AGATE Sensors followed in the growth round with three minutes each.

Martti Wallin, venture partner at Sparkmind Capital and a past chairman of the Association of Finnish Defence and Aerospace Industries, opened the evening with a conversation on what investors and leaders get wrong about defence.

Trackers

Finland's restructuring wave goes strategic

Oct 12, 2026

Companies

Reporting across all sectors

Activity

Press releases Jan–Mar 2026

Announced

2,986

Positions at maximum potential

Confirmed

357

Positions confirmed in Q1

Concluded

Negotiations with final data

Monthly press release activity

Figure 01 · Press Release Watch

Monthly press release activity — Q1 2026

Reduction announcements surged in February with 11 press releases — more than three times January's count.

Layoff / reduction

Hiring / expansion

Source · Company announcements — Helsinki Stock Exchange listed companies, Q1 2026

Cost reduction & profitability improvement

Why companies initiated change negotiations in Q1 2026

Figure 02 · Rationale Clusters

The most common rationales for change negotiations

Companies appear in multiple themes. Bar length reflects relative company count.

Digia · Lamor · Solteq · Nordea · Nanoform · YIT · Wulff · PunaMusta · Valmet · Netum

10companies

Long-term competitiveness & strategic positioning

Valmet · KONE · Nordea · Wärtsilä · Lamor · Grano · Nanoform · Feelia

8companies

Market weakness, demand decline & industry change

Digia · Etteplan · Vincit · Netum · Posti · PunaMusta · KONE

7companies

Organisational transformation & operating model renewal

Lamor · Grano · Wärtsilä · YIT · Nordea · Wulff

6companies

Technology, AI & capability shiftsEmerging

Etteplan · Vincit · Digia · Nordea

4companies

Financial driver (cost, demand)

Strategic driver (positioning, model renewal)

Technology / AI driver

Source · Listeds analysis · Q1 2026 press releases · companies appear in multiple themes

Rationale for change negotiations

Company Detail

Rationale by company — full dataset

19 of 19 companies shown

Company

Digia

Streamlining the global operating model, improving efficiency, enabling more flexible scaling of operations and cost structure, and strengthening competitiveness and profitability.

Valmet

Aligning personnel capacity with prevailing demand, improving operational efficiency, enhancing profitability, implementing cost-saving measures, and responding better to customer and business needs.

PunaMusta Oy (Rebl Group)

Unifying production operations, adapting to declining market volumes, securing sustainable profitability, streamlining production, and creating a sustainable foundation for profitable growth.

Concentrating on core ready-meal operations in Pyhäntä, exiting the frozen products business, streamlining the business structure, and supporting growth in core operations.

Executing the bank's 2030 strategy through workforce skill shifts and structural efficiency improvements, reducing costs, changing workforce composition, and achieving long-term productivity targets.

Responding to a weak market and weakened demand, aligning competencies with structural industry changes driven by AI, improving profitability, and accelerating strategy execution.

Adapting the organisation to rapid AI-driven industry transformation, aligning staffing with current market conditions, maintaining competitiveness, and responding to changing customer demand.

Renewing the organisation in line with a new strategy, shifting from a production-oriented to a customer-focused operating model, strengthening long-term competitiveness, and generating cost savings.

Netum

Responding to structural changes in the New Building Solutions market, supporting the transition toward Service and Modernisation businesses, enhancing efficiency, and strengthening competitiveness.

Renewing the operating model, streamlining the organisation, improving efficiency, and delivering annual cost savings while clarifying business operations and reporting structures.

Accelerating recruitment to support multiple new projects, business expansion, and the company's target of 20% annual growth despite challenging market conditions.

Source · Company press releases · Q1 2026

One bank, one outlier, half the quarter

Figure 03 · Workforce Impact Ranking

Largest announced workforce reduction impacts

Nordea Bank's 1,500 announced positions dwarf all other Q1 reductions — nearly four times the next largest.

Source · Company press releases — Helsinki Stock Exchange listed companies, Q1 2026

All other companies

Confirmed redundancies & Q1 financial performance

Figure 04 · Concluded Negotiations

Announced maximum vs confirmed final

Among the nine concluded negotiations, only Lamor Corporation fully confirmed its announced number.

Source · Company press releases · N=9 concluded only · avg. realisation ~69%

Confirmed final

Avg. realisation ~69% · ink = at/above average · red = below · source: company press releases, Q1 2026

Lamor Corporation confirmed exactly 15 of 15 (100%), with Q1 revenue already down 24.9% to EUR 14.3 million and EBIT negative at EUR -0.4 million, a deterioration of 125.6%.

Etteplan confirmed 63 of 70 (90%), its numbers validated by revenue down 4.6% and EBIT collapsing 47.8% to EUR 2.2 million.

Wulff-Yhtiöt confirmed only 6 of 34 (18%) — the lowest realisation in the dataset — while reporting net sales up 16% and EBIT up 666% to EUR 2.5 million.

The pattern is consistent: genuine financial pressure converts announced maximums into confirmed cuts at high rates; companies with operational flexibility convert far less.

Realisation Rate Detail

Company-by-company realisation rates

Tap any row for the financial context behind the number. Ink bars are at or above the ~69% average; red bars fall below.

Rebl Group (PunaMusta)

Hiring and Workforce Expansion —Three press releases included hiring or workforce expansion announcements during Q1 2026:

Industrials and IT: the same diagnosis, different surgeons

Figure 05 · Sector Analysis

Announced potential impact by sector

Figures represent maximum estimates at negotiation initiation.

Source · Company press releases — Helsinki Stock Exchange, Jan–Mar 2026

All other sectors

Industrials and IT: the financial Logic behind the negotiations

Figure 06 · Sector Comparison

Industrial Equipment vs IT & Services — realisation

IT firms concluded and confirmed faster. Industrial negotiations remained open at quarter-end due to operational complexity.

Source · Company press releases · Listeds analysis · Q1 2026

Confirmed (Q1)

Confirmed (post-Q1)

Confirmed workforce impact

From defence to strategy: what changed from Q4 2025

Figure 07 · Quarter-on-Quarter Shift

Key metrics — Q4 2025 vs Q1 2026

Companies negotiating

+46%

Announced max positions

~3,280

~2,986

−9%

~1,577

~357

−77.3%

Avg. realisation rate

88%

69%

−19pp

Companies with hiring signals

↑ new

Source · Q4 2025 data and Q1 2026 announcements · Listeds

Source · Listeds · Q4 2025 and Q1 2026

Overall, the focus evolved from responding to challenging market conditions in Q4 2025 toward preparing organizations for strategic, technological, and operational change in Q1 2026.

Trend Comparison

The 19-point realisation-rate drop

The fall from 88% to 69% is the most structurally significant number in the dataset.

Q4 2025

Q1 2026

The Q2 confirmation wave

Post-Quarter Update

The Q2 confirmation wave

Concluded 1 Apr · 41 redundancies + 28 role changes

EUR 2.5m annual savings from 2027. Production-oriented → customer-focused model. A subsidiary case — parent financials don't explain the action.

Concluded 9 Apr · 11 positions, all offered relocation

Frozen-food exit was the point, not the headcount. Kokkola factory closed. Parent Fodelia revenue +9.1% — clean subsidiary surgery.

Apetit

Concluded 16 Apr · 21 positions · 100% realisation

Reviewed frozen-pizza production at Pudasjärvi to improve long-term viability and avoid future investment needs. A financial-pressure case.

Concluded 17 Apr · 21 of 45 (47% realisation)

Revenue −15.2%, adjusted EBITA held at EUR 0.3m. AI-driven transformation cited. Margins protected as the topline falls — optionality confirmed.

Concluded 17 Apr · 95 confirmed positions

Structural reorganisation into a function-based model; a new division targeting data-centre, energy, and industrial construction. Genuine operating-model change.

Valmet (Sweden & Poland)

Concluded 21 May · ~350 roles (99%) · Sundsvall closed

A separate Finnish process added ~2,400 temporary layoffs through Dec 2026, targeting EUR 8m in 2026 savings. Drawing down an order book, not managing a dip.

Three negotiations remain open

Nordea2030 strategy capability shift · EUR 190m provision booked

1,500

KONEHyvinkää factory · supply chain and R&D roles

840

WärtsiläFinance & Control global · Gdańsk service centre being built

205

Dual Motion

Five ways Finnish listed companies restructured in Q1 2026

Typology 01 — Financial Pressure

Cut because the numbers demanded it

Rev −24.9% · EBIT turned negative

All 15 positions confirmed (100%). Global operating-model restructuring underway.

Rev −4.6% · EBIT −47.8% · guidance lowered

63 of 70 confirmed. Geopolitical project delays and AI structural shift both cited.

Netum Group

Rev −25.2% · EBITA −86.5% · 1.8% margin

30 confirmed. Cuts concluded Feb 2026 — before the Q1 report, fully validated by it.

Rev −7.5% · operating result negative

33 confirmed. Simultaneously refinancing a EUR 18.7m bond due Oct 2026 — dual pressure.

Posti Group

Rev −1.3% · mail volumes −24.2%

121 of 172 confirmed. Part of a EUR 40m three-year savings programme.

Apetit · Valmet · Digia · Vincit

Margins declining across all four

Apetit op. result −160%. Valmet orders −18%, EPS −44%. Digia EBITA −28.2%. Vincit rev −15.2%.

Typology 02 — Strategic Strength

Cut despite strong financials

Op. profit EUR 1.6bn · ROE 15.4%

EUR 500m buyback active. Up to 1,500 roles — a 2030 capability shift, not crisis response.

Sales +1.3% · Adj. EBIT +5%

Full-year guidance raised the same quarter 840 Hyvinkää positions were announced.

Wulff Group

Rev +16% · EBIT +666%

Only 6 of 34 confirmed — 18%, the lowest in the dataset. A cautious review from strength.

Nanoform

Rev +45% · gross margin 94%

Pre-profit, cash EUR 20.5m. 49 confirmed — burn-rate management to extend runway.

Rev +2% · net loss fair-value driven

95 confirmed. The net loss is fair-value movement, not operational. New division created alongside.

Low realisation rates confirm these announcements carry optionality, not necessity. Distressed companies don't have the luxury of a strategic review. The balance sheet is the prerequisite.

Typology 03 — Dual Motion

Cutting and hiring simultaneously

The gross headcount number is almost irrelevant. What matters is which capabilities are being removed and which are being created. These companies are not shrinking — they are rotating.

Order book all-time high EUR 8.9bn · comparable operating result +16% to EUR 199m (12.8% margin) · Vaasa capacity +35% underway

Removing

≤ 205

Finance & Control, globally

Creating

~130

Gdańsk shared service centre

~75 net reduction — a rounding error against an EUR 8.9bn order book. The composition shift is the point.

Subsidiary of Rebl Group · parent rev +5.9%, EBITDA turning positive · print volumes declining at subsidiary level — parent financials do not explain this

Net reduction of 1 role. The change negotiation is the instrument of capability transformation, not reduction.

Track capability rotation, not headcount. The same legal mechanism is being used to recompose the workforce. These companies are not retreating. They are recomposing.

Typology 04 — Subsidiary Surgery

Parent financials don't explain the action

Feelia Oy

Subsidiary of Fodelia Oyj

Parent — Fodelia

Rev +9.1% · op. profit +17.3% · Feelia brand +15.5%

Subsidiary — Feelia

Kokkola plant closed · frozen food exited entirely

11 positions — portfolio surgery. Exit frozen food to focus on Pyhäntä ready meals. Parent growth is irrelevant.

Grano Oy

Portfolio company of Panostaja Oyj

Parent — Panostaja

Rev −8% · op. profit −EUR 0.9m · partly Grano Diesel disposal

Subsidiary — Grano

Strategic model shift · production → customer-focused

41 redundancies + 28 role changes — model repositioning. The parent's decline has a different cause.

Subsidiary of Rebl Group · see Typology 03

Identify which legal entity filed the notice — and read that entity's financials, not the parent's. Parent-level results actively mislead in every case here.

Typology 05 — Pure Expansion

The only hiring announcement in the quarter

Toivo Group

Residential real-estate developer · Helsinki Stock Exchange · Q1 2026

Q4 2025 — pure hiring announcements

Every workforce press release in Q4 2025 contained a redundancy component.

Q1 2026 — pure hiring announcements

Toivo is the only company of nineteen to file a workforce announcement with no redundancy component whatsoever.

The staircase and the cliff

Restructuring without retreat

The headline from Q1 2026 is misleading. Nineteen companies, nearly 3,000 potential positions, February packed with press releases — it reads like accelerating distress. The data says otherwise.

Monthly Leadership Moves

September's finance seats started filling from inside

Oct 9, 2026

Vincit and WISA broke the lateral run with internal finance appointments

Larger issuers kept buying finance chiefs who already hold the title

SSH went outside for its chief executive, Arvo went to its own board

Reorganizations, not departures, produced most management-team changes

Directors moving into executive roles drove September's committee changes

September split the finance pipeline by company size

Executive Intelligence

Sanoma's family stake moved. So did its nomination committee.

Sep 22, 2026

Read as a €144 million exit, the trade is misread. Nothing left the family.

The staircase and the cliff

The two siblings arrived at the same destination by opposite routes.

Sanoma shares held, million · year-end 2006–2025, then the September 2026 transfer

Robin LangenskiöldRafaela Seppälä

Eleven names, one family branch

Month	Seppälä	Matched increases
Mar 2008	−600,000	Alex Noyer +300,000 · Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin +300,000
Dec 2011	−1,400,000	Alex Noyer +700,000 · Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin +700,000
Mar 2023	−1,246,880	Alex Noyer +623,440 · four Bernardin-Aubouin holders, +155,860 each
May 2023	−1,371,744	Alex Noyer +685,872 · four Bernardin-Aubouin holders, +171,468 each

So Seppälä handed her stake down across eighteen years and five tranches. Langenskiöld handed his down in one afternoon, after two decades of not moving a share.

What the consolidation was fixing

% of Sanoma shares held, 31 August 2026

After: the five largest holdings

The seat changes

The committee now reads:

Member	Represents
Juhani Mäkinen	Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation
Antti Herlin	Holding Manutas
Hanna Kaskela	Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company
Annika Ekman	Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company
Lorna Bernardin-Aubouin	RR & Co Ab

% of Sanoma shares · after the 9 September 2026 transfer