Kaj Koskela, Kesla Plc's sales and customer care director and a management team member since 2025, will retire on July 1, 2026, as the Finnish machinery maker enters a pivotal period shaped by surging defense demand and an ongoing profitability turnaround.

Koskela will continue as a senior advisor focused on developing Kesla's distribution network while the company searches for his successor, the engineering group announced yesterday. CEO Pasi Nieminen will assume responsibility for the sales and customer care function in the interim. Kesla also announced that it has initiated recruitment for a new sales and customer care director. 

CEO Nieminen thanked Koskela for his one-year contribution. "I would like to extend my warm thanks to Kaj for his valuable work and contribution to Kesla. On behalf of the entire company, I wish Kaj all the best in this new phase of life and in his role as senior advisor," he added.

Second management exit in six weeks

The retirement marks the second management team departure disclosed by Kesla in less than six weeks. Jukka Sadinmäki, the company's product development manager and a management team member since 2022, left in May following the announcement of his resignation in April. Recruitment processes are underway for both positions as Kesla seeks to execute a year that management has described as critical for new product launches, operational improvements, and defense growth.

The departures leave vacancies in two functions central to the company's near-term priorities: commercial execution and product development.

Board-level continuity has provided a degree of stability during the management transition. Shareholders re-elected all existing directors at the annual general meeting in May, while Kristiina Helenius joined as the board's only new member.

Defense orders change the picture

The leadership changes come against a markedly improved order backdrop. First-quarter revenue declined 3.5% year-on-year to EUR 8 million, and the operating result remained negative at EUR 740,000, but orders received more than doubled to EUR 27.8 million. The increase was driven primarily by Kesla Defence, including a EUR 17 million order from a NATO country for Kerberos multi-purpose trailers announced in March.

Deliveries under the defense contract are scheduled to begin during summer 2026 and continue for around one year. The order helped lift Kesla's order backlog to EUR 27.5 million, almost tripled from a year earlier, while operating cash flow improved to EUR 929,000 from negative EUR 229,000 in the comparison period.

CEO Pasi Nieminen previously said the NATO order would significantly improve factory utilization and create a stronger foundation for profitability improvement.

From orders to delivery

Alongside the defense ramp-up, Kesla is targeting full-year revenue of EUR 38-45 million and an operating result between negative 2% and positive 2% of revenue. The company is also preparing product launches across all four business areas, completing a structural review of its operations and seeking to repay up to EUR 5 million of bridge financing by the end of 2026.

For investors, the key question is no longer whether Kesla has demand. The focus is shifting to execution: filling two senior management vacancies, delivering its largest defense contract to date, and translating a rapidly expanding order book into sustainable profitability.

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Leaders

Kesla sales chief Kaj Koskela retires amid defense-driven transformation

Kesla sales chief Kaj Koskela retires amid defense-driven transformation

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5 min read

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Credit: Kesla, Kaj Koskela

Credit: Kesla, Kaj Koskela

Kaj Koskela, Kesla Plc's sales and customer care director and a management team member since 2025, will retire on July 1, 2026, as the Finnish machinery maker enters a pivotal period shaped by surging defense demand and an ongoing profitability turnaround.

Koskela will continue as a senior advisor focused on developing Kesla's distribution network while the company searches for his successor, the engineering group announced yesterday. CEO Pasi Nieminen will assume responsibility for the sales and customer care function in the interim. Kesla also announced that it has initiated recruitment for a new sales and customer care director. 

CEO Nieminen thanked Koskela for his one-year contribution. "I would like to extend my warm thanks to Kaj for his valuable work and contribution to Kesla. On behalf of the entire company, I wish Kaj all the best in this new phase of life and in his role as senior advisor," he added.

Second management exit in six weeks

The retirement marks the second management team departure disclosed by Kesla in less than six weeks. Jukka Sadinmäki, the company's product development manager and a management team member since 2022, left in May following the announcement of his resignation in April. Recruitment processes are underway for both positions as Kesla seeks to execute a year that management has described as critical for new product launches, operational improvements, and defense growth.

The departures leave vacancies in two functions central to the company's near-term priorities: commercial execution and product development.

Board-level continuity has provided a degree of stability during the management transition. Shareholders re-elected all existing directors at the annual general meeting in May, while Kristiina Helenius joined as the board's only new member.

Defense orders change the picture

The leadership changes come against a markedly improved order backdrop. First-quarter revenue declined 3.5% year-on-year to EUR 8 million, and the operating result remained negative at EUR 740,000, but orders received more than doubled to EUR 27.8 million. The increase was driven primarily by Kesla Defence, including a EUR 17 million order from a NATO country for Kerberos multi-purpose trailers announced in March.

Deliveries under the defense contract are scheduled to begin during summer 2026 and continue for around one year. The order helped lift Kesla's order backlog to EUR 27.5 million, almost tripled from a year earlier, while operating cash flow improved to EUR 929,000 from negative EUR 229,000 in the comparison period.

CEO Pasi Nieminen previously said the NATO order would significantly improve factory utilization and create a stronger foundation for profitability improvement.

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From orders to delivery

Alongside the defense ramp-up, Kesla is targeting full-year revenue of EUR 38-45 million and an operating result between negative 2% and positive 2% of revenue. The company is also preparing product launches across all four business areas, completing a structural review of its operations and seeking to repay up to EUR 5 million of bridge financing by the end of 2026.

For investors, the key question is no longer whether Kesla has demand. The focus is shifting to execution: filling two senior management vacancies, delivering its largest defense contract to date, and translating a rapidly expanding order book into sustainable profitability.

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Authors

Emmi Laine is head of business content at Listeds and our lead for finance and business coverage. She sets the editorial agenda, interviews Nordic business leaders, and writes stories, newsletters, and social content on timely market and corporate topics. Emmi brings nearly eight years of experience from Shanghai's Yicai Global / Yicai Media Group, where she was awarded for reporting on China’s economy, finance sector, and technology innovation. She holds an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s degree in International Design Business Management from Aalto University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Culture Studies with a major in Journalism from Stockholm University and has studied Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Emmi is a Finnish citizen and has lived in Finland, Sweden, China, and Portugal.

Emmi Laine is head of business content at Listeds and our lead for finance and business coverage. She sets the editorial agenda, interviews Nordic business leaders, and writes stories, newsletters, and social content on timely market and corporate topics. Emmi brings nearly eight years of experience from Shanghai's Yicai Global / Yicai Media Group, where she was awarded for reporting on China’s economy, finance sector, and technology innovation. She holds an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s degree in International Design Business Management from Aalto University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Culture Studies with a major in Journalism from Stockholm University and has studied Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Emmi is a Finnish citizen and has lived in Finland, Sweden, China, and Portugal.

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

Journalist

Emmi Laine is head of business content at Listeds and our lead for finance and business coverage. She sets the editorial agenda, interviews Nordic business leaders, and writes stories, newsletters, and social content on timely market and corporate topics. Emmi brings nearly eight years of experience from Shanghai's Yicai Global / Yicai Media Group, where she was awarded for reporting on China’s economy, finance sector, and technology innovation. She holds an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and a Master’s degree in International Design Business Management from Aalto University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Culture Studies with a major in Journalism from Stockholm University and has studied Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Emmi is a Finnish citizen and has lived in Finland, Sweden, China, and Portugal.

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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Leadership Moves

Teemu Kokko moves from Arvo's board to its chief executive's chair

Sep 7, 2026

Kokko becomes deputy CEO in December and chief executive on 1 April 2027, after five years on Arvo's board of directors. The nomination committee that selected him sits under the supervisory board, one level above that board; Arvo has not disclosed whether he keeps his seat.

On 1 September 2026, Arvo Sijoitusosuuskunta released as inside information that Teemu Kokko will become its chief executive. He starts as deputy CEO in early December 2026 and takes over on 1 April 2027.

Kokko joins from the insurance underwriter Arch Underwriters Europe Oy, where he is regional director. He has also been a member of Arvo's board of directors since 2021.

The committee sits one level up

Arvo is a cooperative. Its highest governing body is not the board of directors but the supervisory board which represents the members, has 18 to 30 seats, serves three-year terms and meets roughly three times a year. That body appoints a nomination committee from among its own members.

When Jari Pirinen announced on 8 September 2025 that he would retire in spring 2027 on turning 66, Arvo said management succession planning sat with that committee, and supervisory board chair Tuomo Tamminen said it would report on progress later.

So the body that selected Kokko is not the board Kokko sits on. It is drawn from a members' organ and answers to the members.

In a listed limited company there is no such layer. The board appoints the chief executive itself. That is the comparison for any Finnish board weighing one of its own directors as a successor: Arvo can point to a committee above the board; a listed board has to show its process instead.

Two things Arvo has not disclosed. The release does not say whether Kokko remains a member of the board of directors once he becomes deputy CEO in December or chief executive in April. Nor does it say how the board handled his candidacy, he has been a director throughout the period covered by the succession process announced in September 2025.

Arvo's board was re-elected in February 2026 and comprises Marjo Kolehmainen as chair (a director since 2018, chair since 2022), Mika Kiljala as vice chair (director since 2017), Juha Laakkonen and Kokko (both since 2021), and Titta Mantila (since 2024).

The handover runs 19 months end to end

Retirement flagged in September 2025. Successor named in September 2026. Four months as deputy chief executive from early December 2026. Handover on 1 April 2027. Pirinen then moves to special duties on the board of directors from that date, takes accrued leave, and retires on 31 May 2027.

That is a longer and more pre-committed sequence than Helsinki practice, where chief executive changes are often announced with an interim in place and a search still running.

The numbers he inherits, and the transaction inside them

Arvo reported group operating profit of EUR 8.5 million for the first half of 2026, against EUR 6.5 million a year earlier, and a net result of EUR 7.0 million against EUR 2.7 million. Annualised return on invested capital was 17.0 per cent, against 10.3 per cent. Equity per unit rose to EUR 123 from EUR 117.

Most of the step-up traces to one position. Arvo sold its entire holding of 896,806 shares in Nasdaq Stockholm-listed HANZA AB in March 2026 for a capital gain of approximately EUR 6.9 million. It had taken those shares in 2025 as part of the price for exiting Leden Group — a Finnish seller accepting equity in a Swedish listed acquirer, then realising it inside twelve months. That structure is the more transferable lesson in the half-year for anyone selling a Finnish asset across the Gulf of Bothnia.

Underlying performance was already ahead of target before the disposal. Parent-company return on invested capital was 10.1 per cent for full-year 2025, which the company said clearly exceeded the board's return target, and the board proposed a per-unit interest of EUR 5.77, which Arvo characterised as about 60 per cent of the year's earnings. At the end of 2025 the cooperative had 22,373 members and 814,470 units.

The units closed at EUR 84.20 on 3 September 2026. Equity per unit was EUR 123 at 30 June 2026. On those two dates the units traded roughly 32 per cent below reported equity per unit — a gap readers should weigh themselves, and one measured across a two-month interval rather than at a single date. Inderes rates the units Accumulate as at 21 August 2026; Arvo is a commissioned research client of Inderes, and its coverage should be read with that in mind.

The mandate points one way, the reported share the other

Tamminen set the direction in the appointment release:

"Under Teemu's leadership, we believe Arvo's investment operations will develop further and the share of direct investments will grow."

He paired it with a constraint in the same release:

"We continue to regard it as important that Arvo remains a stable payer of the per-unit interest, as in previous years."

Grow the illiquid share; keep the cash distribution steady. Those two pull against each other, and holding both is the substance of the job.

The measured direct share has been moving the other way. Direct investments were 47 per cent of the portfolio at fair value at the end of 2025, up from 44 per cent a year earlier. At 30 June 2026 they were 40 per cent, against 45 per cent at 30 June 2025.

The profit and the fall have a common cause: the HANZA exit produced the gain and removed a direct holding. So the growth mandate starts from a lower base than the 2025 figures suggest. 

Deal activity has continued. Arvo took a minority stake in bus operator Wiimax Oy alongside Wiimax's acquisition of J.M. Eskelisen Lapin Linjat Oy, and joined a Helmet Capital-led investor group in Oskutuote Oy, a wild bird food specialist.

Why it matters beyond one cooperative

Arvo listed its units on Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland, Cooperatives segment, on 20 June 2023 under the ticker ARVOSK — the first cooperative units listed on Nasdaq's Nordic markets. It is a listed issuer with a members' register the size of a mid-cap shareholder base and a governance architecture most Finnish listed companies gave up decades ago.

Three questions for any company announcing a new chief executive.

  • Who runs the process, and does that body sit above the candidate or beside him? Arvo can point one level up.

  • What gets disclosed at the moment of appointment? Whether the incoming chief executive keeps a board seat, and how his candidacy was handled, are reasonable things for a market to be told at announcement rather than to reconstruct afterwards.

  • What is the mandate measured against? Kokko is asked to grow direct investments while keeping the per-unit interest stable, from a direct share that fell in the most recent reported period, after a disposal that produced the profit he inherits credit for.

Market Signals

Oura's board is being built for Nasdaq: prospectus reveals $1.21bn in nine-month revenue and four US-market directors

Sep 4, 2026

Oura has filed publicly for a Nasdaq listing in the United States and, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, intends to list during September. The Finnish smart ring maker submitted a confidential filing in May. The prospectus arrives with a board reshaped for US public markets, and a Nordic presence now outnumbered on it.

The prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows revenue of $1.21 billion for the nine months ended 30 June 2026, the first three quarters of a fiscal year that ends 30 September, against $697.6 million in the same period a year earlier, a rise of 74%. Full-year FY2025 revenue was $907.9 million, against $406.8 million the year before. The net loss attributable to common shareholders over the same nine months was $924.3 million, compared with $182.8 million a year earlier.

Oura shipped 3.1 million rings in the nine-month period, against 1.8 million a year earlier. Membership revenue reached $240.5 million, up 121%, and paid members doubled to 5 million, the recurring line that will matter most to public-market investors, and the one that turns a hardware company into a subscription business.

The headline loss sits beneath a $985m deemed dividend

Before the deemed dividend attached to preferred shares, Oura's net result for the period was a profit of $60.8 million, against $1.6 million a year earlier. The $924.3 million figure emerges after a $985 million deemed dividend to holders of redeemable convertible preferred shares is deducted. The comparable deemed dividend a year earlier was $184.4 million.

Oura raised more than $1.2 billion privately before this filing. A Fidelity-led round in October 2025 valued the company at $11 billion. The listing could raise up to $3 billion for the company and some of its backers at a valuation exceeding $16 billion, Bloomberg reported on 24 August 2026, a repricing of roughly 45% in under a year. 

The new board adds Robinhood's IPO-era CFO and Wolt's founder

Oura said on 2 September that it will appoint Jason Warnick, Leslie Kilgore, Miki Kuusi and David Sze as directors.

Warnick spent seven years as chief financial officer of Robinhood, where he helped take the company public and through its subsequent life as a listed business. He retired from the role earlier this year and was succeeded by Shiv Verma. Before that he spent nearly two decades at Amazon across finance, investor relations, audit and enterprise risk, and began his career as a CPA at Deloitte & Touche.

Kilgore sits on the boards of Netflix and Pinterest, and has previously served on those of LinkedIn, Medallia and Nextdoor. She was chief marketing officer at Netflix, and held earlier positions at Amazon, Procter & Gamble and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Kuusi co-founded Wolt and led it as chief executive from 2014 until DoorDash acquired the company in 2022. He now oversees DoorDash's international business and serves as chief executive of London-based Deliveroo. 

Sze is a partner at Greylock Partners, where he led investments in Facebook, LinkedIn, Roblox and Pandora. He previously held senior operating roles at Excite and Excite@Home.

The four join Timo Ahopelto, Dennis Durkin, chief executive Tom Hale, Wen Hsieh, Eurie Kim and chairman David Shuman on the board.

"Adding Jason, Leslie, Miki, and David strengthens our board with leaders who know what it takes to build and scale category-defining global businesses," Hale said in the company's statement.

What the appointments say about where Oura's governance now sits

The appointments describe a specific destination. Warnick is a CFO who has already run a listing and the quarterly reporting cycle that follows it. Kilgore brings the consumer-brand seat that US public boards expect. Sze holds an investor seat. None of the three has a Nordic mandate.

That leaves a ten-person board on which Ahopelto and Kuusi are the Nordic voices, at a company founded in Oulu that will report as a US filer under SEC rules rather than the Finnish Corporate Governance Code. For Nordic investors, Oura is on the way to becoming a company you can read about but not vote on in Helsinki, the governance follows the listing venue, and the listing venue is Nasdaq.

Oura is not leaving Finland. The engineers stay, the product stays. What moves is the register, the governance regime and the venue where the company answers for itself. IQM proved that part is a choice, it took both listings. Oura’s prospectus takes one.

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