Netum Group has reorganised into four business areas, added two directors to its management team and set a 10% EBITA margin target for 2029. The structure is coherent. The test is whether a team that has turned over repeatedly since 2025 can hold still long enough to deliver.
Netum Group made three announcements on Monday morning. It put its strategy, its structure and its top team on the table. The Board approved a refined strategy with new targets for 2027 to 2029. It announced a reorganisation into four business areas, with EUR 1.4 to 1.8 million in annual cost savings. It also named the directors who will run them. Taken together, the releases do more than adjust costs. They move accountability into the business areas and add a management seat while headcount falls. They also commit Netum to a 10% EBITA margin by 2029 from a loss-making start. Netum expects 2026 revenue to fall well below the 2025 level of EUR 37.8 million and comparable EBITA to be negative. In the first half, revenue fell 25.5% and EBITA was negative at 2.4% of revenue.
Netum says its Group Management Team “remains largely unchanged.” By head count that holds, with six of seven current members continuing. From 1 January 2027 at the latest, half of the eight-member team will be business area directors, each accountable for financial performance, personnel and capacity. Two of those four are new to the team, and Mikko Pitkänen, director of Netum Solutions, has resigned. He will not take a management role in the new organisation and will carry out separately agreed duties until his notice period ends.
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.
The change sits in delivery. Sebastian Pönkkö takes Core Systems, Integrations & Operations. The appointments have an external-origin that came in through an acquisition.Aapo Cederberg joins the team to lead Cybersecurity, Regulation & Data Protection. He founded and ran Cyberwatch Oy, which Netum bought in April 2026. Outi Mattila will run Data, Digital & AI; she was previously Business Director of Expert Services at Buutti Oy. Liisa Rusanen will head Education Solutions & Products while continuing as CEO of Studyo Oy. Buutti and Cyberwatch will be integrated operationally into the business areas. Studyo stays a separate legal entity.
The structure is also flatter. No more than two management levels will sit between the CEO and a specialist: the business area director and the team lead, who will also deliver client work. Sales and Group Services become shared functions alongside the four areas, with capacity managed across the group. The model replaces the current split into Solutions, Expert Services and Products.
Each area has a defined job. Data, Digital & AI holds the core of Netum's AI capability. Core Systems covers systems critical to society, along with continuity services. Cybersecurity, which combines Netum's security services with Cyberwatch, is the area the strategy names for growth. Education Solutions & Products is the outlier. Through Studyo and Peppi it earns from subscriptions rather than billable hours, so its profit does not depend on how busy Netum's specialists are.
Revenue fell EUR 6.2 million in a year. The management layer did not.
The reorganisation release explains the cause directly. Revenue was EUR 44.0 million in 2024 and EUR 37.8 million in 2025. Most of the decline came from three large customer contracts that ended in July 2025 and from weaker demand for subcontracting in specialist services. Netum says its support functions and management were "designed for a substantially larger business."
The fix is structural rather than incremental, and the cuts follow that diagnosis. Change negotiations cover 40 employees, with 10 to 20 positions expected to go, mainly in shared functions, sales, and management, supervisory and coordination roles. Temporary layoffs are planned from this quarter. Specialists doing client work are not the target.
Harmanen frames it as a break with the old approach: "This is no longer about an individual cost-saving measure. We are reshaping the entire organisation to align with our strategy." That is a clear break from August, when negotiations covering 30 people targeted about EUR 350,000 in savings.
The team has turned over almost completely around Harmanen since 2025
Netum’s management team has changed almost completely since Repe Harmanen moved from the Board to the CEO role on 10 January 2025, and seven members have left it, counting Pitkänen. Matti Mujunen retired as CEO. Lauri Stigell followed in April 2025 when he stepped down from his position as CEO of Studyo Oy. Mujunen however continues as an advisor to the Board of Directors. Liisa Rusanen was appointed, transferring from the role of CEO of Codeo Oy. Kimmo Koivisto and Juha-Pekka Leskinen left the team in July 2025, when it was cut from nine members to seven, though both kept their roles. Altti Raali, CEO of the subsidiary Netum Ltd, left with immediate effect in October 2025, and Mikko Koistinen moved to a strategic account role in January 2026. Of the eight members who will run Netum from January, only Liina Kangas, Sami Rantanen and Peter Ahlskog have sat on the team before 2025. Three of them, Harmanen, Mattila and Rusanen, have been on it for less than a year.
Pitkänen’s exit is the one to read closely. He was appointed in September 2025 to simplify the Netum Ltd business area and “build a strong foundation for profitable growth.” Until the end of his notice period, he will carry out separately agreed duties until his notice period ends. The unit he led, Netum Solutions, went through change negotiations twice: in December 2025, involving 223 people and again in August 2026. The outcome of the December round, announced in February 2026, was two dismissals, 26 lay-offs and material changes to the employment terms of two people. Its operations are now divided among the other business areas.
The structure fits the business, but the team now has to stay in place
Recent contracts map onto the new areas: integration work for the cities of Turku and Järvenpää, and security testing for Statistics Finland. The risk is the record above. In August, Netum said its previous change negotiations had raised employee turnover more than expected and reduced delivery capacity. The new round covers 40 people just as utilisation needs to rise. A management seat added in a company that has gone from 394 employees to 308 pays off only if the business area directors run their areas as owners of results, not as another layer of coordination.
The third-quarter review in early November will show whether the second-half recovery has started. The end of the change negotiations will settle where savings land within the EUR 1.4 to 1.8 million range. The year 2027, the first full year under the new structure, will be the first real test of the path to a 10% margin.
