Ville Raatikainen, a manufacturing engineering director at iLOQ with an R&D and product management background at Nokia, joins the Management Team on January 1, 2027. He is the second outside hire to the team since July, and he starts in the year the PCB maker commissions its expanded Oulu plant.

Aspocomp has appointed Ville Raatikainen (born 1984), M.Sc. (Eng.), as Chief Engineering and Technology Officer and a member of the Management Team from January 1, 2027. He currently serves as Director, Product Lifecycle and Manufacturing Engineering at iLOQ Oy and previously held R&D and product management roles at Nokia. Chief Technology Officer Mitri Mattila will stay with the company and report to Raatikainen. Mattila has worked at Aspocomp since 1997 and sat on the Management Team since 2018. 

Chief executive Manu Skyttä's endorsement speaks to production as much as to technology:

Ville has a strong track record in managing complex technical environments, improving production performance, and developing high-quality, cost-effective design operations. He has a strong background in both global listed companies like Nokia and fast-growing technology companies like iLOQ, and I am pleased to welcome him to Aspocomp. 

Six of seven Management Team members will have joined since 2024

Raatikainen follows Ilkka Lohi, who became Quality Director on September 2, 2026 in a role the company raised to Management Team level. Listeds data shows how far the renewal runs. Skyttä became chief executive in 2024 after serving as EVP, Operations at Patria, and Pekka Holopainen joined the team as operations chief the same year. Hanna-Leena Keskitalo and Terhi Launis followed in 2025, with Launis taking over finance on September, 2025. When the January 2027 line-up takes effect, Antti Ojala, a member since 2013, will be the only one whose seat predates 2024.

This is a team assembled for the expansion, not inherited from the loss years. The board supplies the sector memory. Chairman Ville Vuori is a former Incap chief executive, and director Anssi Korhonen was CTO of VTI Technologies.

The hire lands as Oulu moves from construction to yield

The Oulu program is worth more than EUR 10 million and aims to lift throughput capacity by up to 50%. Demand had already outrun the plant. At the strategy launch in November 2025, Skyttä said: “The capacity of the Oulu plant has been fully utilized throughout 2025, and demand has already exceeded our capacity.The growth in demand in our largest customer segments appears likely to continue over the next 5–10 years.” The building extension was finished on schedule and within budget, and new capacity is to be commissioned in phases throughout 2027. By July the automated warehouse was running, factory acceptance tests for new production lines had begun, and management said the second half would center on production quality and yield.

The risks are operational. Spare-parts shortages after an equipment manufacturer's bankruptcy slowed deliveries in the first quarter. Delivery times for laminates, fiberglass, resins and copper foil are lengthening and prices are rising, and the company warns that the installations may temporarily disrupt production. Those are manufacturing engineering problems, and that is the experience Raatikainen brings from iLOQ.

A record order book still has to turn into margin

Period

Net sales, EUR m

Operating result, EUR m

Orders received, EUR m

Order book, EUR m

Equity ratio

FY 2025 

38.2 (27.6)

0.9 (-4.0)

39.3 (37.0)

21.1 (19.9)

65.0%

Q1 2026 

9.7 (10.3)

0.2 (0.8)

12.2 (11.4)

23.5 (21.0)

63.9%

Q2 2026 

10.6 (10.1)

0.4 (0.2)

12.9 (8.8)

25.9 (19.8)

60.9%

H1 2026 

20.3 (20.4)

0.6 (1.0)

25.2 (20.3)

25.9 (19.8)

60.9%

The order book reached a record EUR 25.9 million at the end of June, with parts stretching to late 2027. Semiconductor customers placed 38% of second-quarter orders and defense customers 25%, while the five largest customers' share of net sales fell to 58% (75%). Profit has lagged, weighed down until the second quarter by low-margin orders agreed in 2024. Skyttä's position is unambiguous: “We expect profitability to improve in the second half of the year.”

Skyttä took that defense case to investors on September 21, 2026, when Aspocomp pitched at the Listeds Investor Event – Defence alongside Gofore, Kesla, Savox Communications and Betolar, with three more defense and dual-use companies presenting in a separate growth round. Helene Auramo, CEO of Listeds Oy opened the evening with the question “Can Europe build what it has ordered?” Skyttä gave his reply in a LinkedIn post afterward: “My answer, in short: not without PCBs.” In the same post he put Europe's share of global PCB production at 2.2% and said the number of European PCB makers has fallen from 593 to 168 since 2000. Aspocomp's order book already reflects that shortage, and its capacity to meet it is what the Oulu expansion will test. 

Aspocomp is aiming for EUR 100 million in sales and a double-digit margin

The 2026 to 2030 strategy targets more than EUR 100 million in net sales in the long term and an EBIT margin exceeding 10% in the midterm, with the aim of ranking among the top three PCB manufacturers and suppliers in selected European segments. Oulu alone will not deliver that. The company states that reaching the sales target depends on expanding its production network, also through M&A, alongside a wider partner network outside China. The expansion of Oulu plant  is funded by a directed share issue of about EUR 3.2 million and EUR 5.5 million in long-term loans, plus about EUR 1.75 million from the EU Just Transition Fund. For 2026, Aspocomp guides for higher net sales and a better operating result than the EUR 38.2 million and EUR 0.9 million of 2025.

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Leaders

Aspocomp names Ville Raatikainen chief engineering and technology officer as new Oulu capacity arrives in 2027

Aspocomp names Ville Raatikainen chief engineering and technology officer as new Oulu capacity arrives in 2027

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5 min read

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Ville Raatikainen, a manufacturing engineering director at iLOQ with an R&D and product management background at Nokia, joins the Management Team on January 1, 2027. He is the second outside hire to the team since July, and he starts in the year the PCB maker commissions its expanded Oulu plant.

Aspocomp has appointed Ville Raatikainen (born 1984), M.Sc. (Eng.), as Chief Engineering and Technology Officer and a member of the Management Team from January 1, 2027. He currently serves as Director, Product Lifecycle and Manufacturing Engineering at iLOQ Oy and previously held R&D and product management roles at Nokia. Chief Technology Officer Mitri Mattila will stay with the company and report to Raatikainen. Mattila has worked at Aspocomp since 1997 and sat on the Management Team since 2018. 

Chief executive Manu Skyttä's endorsement speaks to production as much as to technology:

Ville has a strong track record in managing complex technical environments, improving production performance, and developing high-quality, cost-effective design operations. He has a strong background in both global listed companies like Nokia and fast-growing technology companies like iLOQ, and I am pleased to welcome him to Aspocomp. 

Six of seven Management Team members will have joined since 2024

Raatikainen follows Ilkka Lohi, who became Quality Director on September 2, 2026 in a role the company raised to Management Team level. Listeds data shows how far the renewal runs. Skyttä became chief executive in 2024 after serving as EVP, Operations at Patria, and Pekka Holopainen joined the team as operations chief the same year. Hanna-Leena Keskitalo and Terhi Launis followed in 2025, with Launis taking over finance on September, 2025. When the January 2027 line-up takes effect, Antti Ojala, a member since 2013, will be the only one whose seat predates 2024.

This is a team assembled for the expansion, not inherited from the loss years. The board supplies the sector memory. Chairman Ville Vuori is a former Incap chief executive, and director Anssi Korhonen was CTO of VTI Technologies.

The hire lands as Oulu moves from construction to yield

The Oulu program is worth more than EUR 10 million and aims to lift throughput capacity by up to 50%. Demand had already outrun the plant. At the strategy launch in November 2025, Skyttä said: “The capacity of the Oulu plant has been fully utilized throughout 2025, and demand has already exceeded our capacity.The growth in demand in our largest customer segments appears likely to continue over the next 5–10 years.” The building extension was finished on schedule and within budget, and new capacity is to be commissioned in phases throughout 2027. By July the automated warehouse was running, factory acceptance tests for new production lines had begun, and management said the second half would center on production quality and yield.

The risks are operational. Spare-parts shortages after an equipment manufacturer's bankruptcy slowed deliveries in the first quarter. Delivery times for laminates, fiberglass, resins and copper foil are lengthening and prices are rising, and the company warns that the installations may temporarily disrupt production. Those are manufacturing engineering problems, and that is the experience Raatikainen brings from iLOQ.

A record order book still has to turn into margin

Period

Net sales, EUR m

Operating result, EUR m

Orders received, EUR m

Order book, EUR m

Equity ratio

FY 2025 

38.2 (27.6)

0.9 (-4.0)

39.3 (37.0)

21.1 (19.9)

65.0%

Q1 2026 

9.7 (10.3)

0.2 (0.8)

12.2 (11.4)

23.5 (21.0)

63.9%

Q2 2026 

10.6 (10.1)

0.4 (0.2)

12.9 (8.8)

25.9 (19.8)

60.9%

H1 2026 

20.3 (20.4)

0.6 (1.0)

25.2 (20.3)

25.9 (19.8)

60.9%

The order book reached a record EUR 25.9 million at the end of June, with parts stretching to late 2027. Semiconductor customers placed 38% of second-quarter orders and defense customers 25%, while the five largest customers' share of net sales fell to 58% (75%). Profit has lagged, weighed down until the second quarter by low-margin orders agreed in 2024. Skyttä's position is unambiguous: “We expect profitability to improve in the second half of the year.”

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Skyttä took that defense case to investors on September 21, 2026, when Aspocomp pitched at the Listeds Investor Event – Defence alongside Gofore, Kesla, Savox Communications and Betolar, with three more defense and dual-use companies presenting in a separate growth round. Helene Auramo, CEO of Listeds Oy opened the evening with the question “Can Europe build what it has ordered?” Skyttä gave his reply in a LinkedIn post afterward: “My answer, in short: not without PCBs.” In the same post he put Europe's share of global PCB production at 2.2% and said the number of European PCB makers has fallen from 593 to 168 since 2000. Aspocomp's order book already reflects that shortage, and its capacity to meet it is what the Oulu expansion will test. 

Aspocomp is aiming for EUR 100 million in sales and a double-digit margin

The 2026 to 2030 strategy targets more than EUR 100 million in net sales in the long term and an EBIT margin exceeding 10% in the midterm, with the aim of ranking among the top three PCB manufacturers and suppliers in selected European segments. Oulu alone will not deliver that. The company states that reaching the sales target depends on expanding its production network, also through M&A, alongside a wider partner network outside China. The expansion of Oulu plant  is funded by a directed share issue of about EUR 3.2 million and EUR 5.5 million in long-term loans, plus about EUR 1.75 million from the EU Just Transition Fund. For 2026, Aspocomp guides for higher net sales and a better operating result than the EUR 38.2 million and EUR 0.9 million of 2025.

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Authors

Devdatta Temgire is a data and business analyst at Listeds. He contributes research, data analysis, and pattern detection to the publication’s coverage of Nordic-listed companies, with a focus on board composition, leadership transitions, and financials. He holds an honors degree in artificial intelligence and data science alongside a bachelor’s in computer engineering, and previously worked at KPMG.

Devdatta Temgire is a data and business analyst at Listeds. He contributes research, data analysis, and pattern detection to the publication’s coverage of Nordic-listed companies, with a focus on board composition, leadership transitions, and financials. He holds an honors degree in artificial intelligence and data science alongside a bachelor’s in computer engineering, and previously worked at KPMG.

Authors

Devdatta Temgire is a data and business analyst at Listeds. He contributes research, data analysis, and pattern detection to the publication’s coverage of Nordic-listed companies, with a focus on board composition, leadership transitions, and financials. He holds an honors degree in artificial intelligence and data science alongside a bachelor’s in computer engineering, and previously worked at KPMG.

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Investor Event

Listeds Investor Event · Defence

Nordic defence is in a once-in-a-generation growth cycle. Eight listed and pre-IPO companies pitch to 100+ invited investors at Valkoinen Sali, Helsinki

21 September 2026

Latest on Listeds

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. 

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