Around forty of those names belong to a single company each. Citycon has the only cyber committee on the exchange, and last year it did not meet.

Citycon's board has a Cyber Committee. It is the only one on Nasdaq Helsinki. The company's own governance disclosure records that in 2025, the Cyber Committee did not convene. Its Audit and Governance Committee met four times that year. Its Nomination and Remuneration Committee met seven.

A cyber committee is a defensible answer to a real exposure for a listed property owner. What stands out is that no other Helsinki-listed board has formalised the same risk in the same way, or in many cases at all.

35+ committee names belong to a single company each

Citycon is not the only board with a committee nobody else has. Raisio established an M&A Committee at its 2025 annual general meeting, chaired by board chair Arto Tiitinen. Orion runs an R&D Committee, chaired by Hilpi Rautelin, the only one of its kind in the Finnish listed market. Revenio has an Integration Committee. GRK Infra has a Tender and Project Committee. HKFoods runs a Working Committee and a Special Committee. Fortum has folded technology and investment into one body, and YIT has done the same with investment and projects.

Audit and remuneration still do almost all of the work

Across 184 Helsinki-listed companies, 127 have at least one board committee. Fifty-seven have none. Those 127 boards run 270 committees between them.

The functions concentrate tightly. Audit appears in 122 committee mandates, remuneration in 71, and people, personnel or human resources in 59. Nomination or governance appears in 26, sustainability in 14, risk in 13.

Another 11 committees use "Compensation" instead of remuneration, so a body explicitly charged with pay appears in 82 of the 270 — and that still excludes the 17 Personnel, People and Human Resources committees holding the same mandate without naming pay.

The names do not concentrate at all. After normalising for capitalisation and ampersands, those 270 committees carry 60 distinct labels, and 38 of them are used by exactly one company.

Most of that variety is cosmetic. People and Sustainability. Sustainability and Personnel. Sustainability and HR. Remuneration and HR. HR and Compensation. People and Compensation. Human Resources and Remuneration. Seven labels, one mandate.

The Code mandates the function, not the label

None of this is a compliance failure. The Finnish Corporate Governance Code 2026 is explicit: "Companies do not have an obligation under the Corporate Governance Code to establish committees or a shareholders' nomination board. As the establishment of the committees is not obligatory, the lack of committees is not deemed to be a departure from the code and therefore there is no need to report or explain it."

The Code also lets boards merge mandates, stating that "the board of directors may combine duties of the committees referred to in the Corporate Governance Code into a single committee or also establish other permanent or temporary committees, combine the duties assigned to different committees, or decide that a certain matter be prepared by the entire board of directors ". It requires only that the statutory audit duties sit somewhere, whether in a dedicated audit committee, in another committee, or with the board as a whole.

Committee data does not aggregate across Helsinki

For a board, a specialist committee is a statement about where directors spend their hours. Orion formalising research and development, and Nokia formalising both technology and strategy, tell a reader something that the committee list in an annual report otherwise flattens.

For anyone reading across the market, the absence of a shared vocabulary is the cost. Screening Nasdaq Helsinki for boards with a technology committee returns no reliable answer. Nokia, Kalmar, Kempower and Revenio call it Technology. Fortum calls it Technology and Investment. Sotkamo Silver calls it Technical. Citycon has carved cyber out on its own. (That reading is interpretation. It is a comparability problem for investors and index work, not a governance failing at any individual company.)

Worth watching is whether specialist committees spread beyond the handful of boards that run them. Technology-type committees number seven across the market. Cyber committees number one, and last year it did not meet.

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Insights

Helsinki's boards run 270 committees under 60 different names

Helsinki's boards run 270 committees under 60 different names

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5 min read

Around forty of those names belong to a single company each. Citycon has the only cyber committee on the exchange, and last year it did not meet.

Citycon's board has a Cyber Committee. It is the only one on Nasdaq Helsinki. The company's own governance disclosure records that in 2025, the Cyber Committee did not convene. Its Audit and Governance Committee met four times that year. Its Nomination and Remuneration Committee met seven.

A cyber committee is a defensible answer to a real exposure for a listed property owner. What stands out is that no other Helsinki-listed board has formalised the same risk in the same way, or in many cases at all.

35+ committee names belong to a single company each

Citycon is not the only board with a committee nobody else has. Raisio established an M&A Committee at its 2025 annual general meeting, chaired by board chair Arto Tiitinen. Orion runs an R&D Committee, chaired by Hilpi Rautelin, the only one of its kind in the Finnish listed market. Revenio has an Integration Committee. GRK Infra has a Tender and Project Committee. HKFoods runs a Working Committee and a Special Committee. Fortum has folded technology and investment into one body, and YIT has done the same with investment and projects.

Audit and remuneration still do almost all of the work

Across 184 Helsinki-listed companies, 127 have at least one board committee. Fifty-seven have none. Those 127 boards run 270 committees between them.

The functions concentrate tightly. Audit appears in 122 committee mandates, remuneration in 71, and people, personnel or human resources in 59. Nomination or governance appears in 26, sustainability in 14, risk in 13.

Another 11 committees use "Compensation" instead of remuneration, so a body explicitly charged with pay appears in 82 of the 270 — and that still excludes the 17 Personnel, People and Human Resources committees holding the same mandate without naming pay.

The names do not concentrate at all. After normalising for capitalisation and ampersands, those 270 committees carry 60 distinct labels, and 38 of them are used by exactly one company.

Most of that variety is cosmetic. People and Sustainability. Sustainability and Personnel. Sustainability and HR. Remuneration and HR. HR and Compensation. People and Compensation. Human Resources and Remuneration. Seven labels, one mandate.

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The Code mandates the function, not the label

None of this is a compliance failure. The Finnish Corporate Governance Code 2026 is explicit: "Companies do not have an obligation under the Corporate Governance Code to establish committees or a shareholders' nomination board. As the establishment of the committees is not obligatory, the lack of committees is not deemed to be a departure from the code and therefore there is no need to report or explain it."

The Code also lets boards merge mandates, stating that "the board of directors may combine duties of the committees referred to in the Corporate Governance Code into a single committee or also establish other permanent or temporary committees, combine the duties assigned to different committees, or decide that a certain matter be prepared by the entire board of directors ". It requires only that the statutory audit duties sit somewhere, whether in a dedicated audit committee, in another committee, or with the board as a whole.

Committee data does not aggregate across Helsinki

For a board, a specialist committee is a statement about where directors spend their hours. Orion formalising research and development, and Nokia formalising both technology and strategy, tell a reader something that the committee list in an annual report otherwise flattens.

For anyone reading across the market, the absence of a shared vocabulary is the cost. Screening Nasdaq Helsinki for boards with a technology committee returns no reliable answer. Nokia, Kalmar, Kempower and Revenio call it Technology. Fortum calls it Technology and Investment. Sotkamo Silver calls it Technical. Citycon has carved cyber out on its own. (That reading is interpretation. It is a comparability problem for investors and index work, not a governance failing at any individual company.)

Worth watching is whether specialist committees spread beyond the handful of boards that run them. Technology-type committees number seven across the market. Cyber committees number one, and last year it did not meet.

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Authors

Founder and ceo

Helene Auramo is a co-founder of Listeds and Nordic Listed Leaders. She has previously co-founded Slush, Indiedays, Zipipop, and Okimo Clinic, building ventures at the intersection of media, technology, and community. She holds board positions at the Finnish Business School Graduates (Suomen Ekonomit) and Finnvera, and serves as Chair of the Investment Committee at the Finnish Business School Graduates. Helene is also a columnist for Talouselämä, Finland’s leading business magazine, and Aamulehti, one of the country’s largest newspapers. Her work focuses on leadership, growth, and the structures that shape decision-making in Nordic companies. She was awarded Future Board Member of the Year in 2022 by Future Board.

Founder and ceo

Helene Auramo is a co-founder of Listeds and Nordic Listed Leaders. She has previously co-founded Slush, Indiedays, Zipipop, and Okimo Clinic, building ventures at the intersection of media, technology, and community. She holds board positions at the Finnish Business School Graduates (Suomen Ekonomit) and Finnvera, and serves as Chair of the Investment Committee at the Finnish Business School Graduates. Helene is also a columnist for Talouselämä, Finland’s leading business magazine, and Aamulehti, one of the country’s largest newspapers. Her work focuses on leadership, growth, and the structures that shape decision-making in Nordic companies. She was awarded Future Board Member of the Year in 2022 by Future Board.

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

Founder and ceo

Helene Auramo is a co-founder of Listeds and Nordic Listed Leaders. She has previously co-founded Slush, Indiedays, Zipipop, and Okimo Clinic, building ventures at the intersection of media, technology, and community. She holds board positions at the Finnish Business School Graduates (Suomen Ekonomit) and Finnvera, and serves as Chair of the Investment Committee at the Finnish Business School Graduates. Helene is also a columnist for Talouselämä, Finland’s leading business magazine, and Aamulehti, one of the country’s largest newspapers. Her work focuses on leadership, growth, and the structures that shape decision-making in Nordic companies. She was awarded Future Board Member of the Year in 2022 by Future Board.

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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