Momentum on gender, a standstill on nationality

Women held 33.6% of board seats on 1 January and 34.9% by 30 June — a 1.3-point gain in six months, on top of the longer climb from 28.2% in 2022. Most of that climb happened in 2025, when the share jumped 3.0 points — the largest annual move in the series, and a full year before the compliance deadline. Boards with only one woman fell from 26.2% to 21.9% of the market, while boards above the 40% mark rose from 24.0% to 27.8%. Representation is broadening beyond a single seat. Yet the count of all-male boards held flat at eight companies, all of them Small Cap or First North, and the share of women serving as chair slipped from 12.0% (22 companies) to 10.7% (20 companies) — progress in membership has not yet reached the top of the table.

Nationality diversity did not move: Finnish nationals held 77.3% of seats at both the start and end of the period. The figure has sat between 77.3% and 78.2% in every reading since 2022, and the only real move was a 0.9-point fall in the Finnish share during 2025. Internationalisation stays concentrated in a handful of large, global companies and in telecommunications, health care and energy, while industrials, technology and consumer staples remain overwhelmingly domestic. Average board age eased from 57.6 to 57.0 over the half, though boards are older than they were: the average has climbed from 55.7 in 2022, and millennial representation ticked up from 12.0% to 12.2% — renewal at the margin, not in structure.

From a single seat toward balance

The half shows continued momentum rather than a plateau, with the character of change shifting from "adding a first woman" toward "moving past a single seat." Women rose from 33.6% to 34.9% of all board seats, and the share of boards above 40% women climbed from 24.0% to 27.8%. The pace, however, has slowed: the 3.0-point gain in 2025 was more than double the 1.3 points added in H1 2026. The persistence of eight all-male boards and the dip in female chairs mark where progress has not reached: the smallest companies, and the most senior board role.

Boards with only one woman fell from 26.2% to 21.9% of companies; boards above 40% women rose from 24.0% to 27.8%. All-male boards held flat at eight companies (4.4% to 4.3% of the market). Female chairs slipped from 12.0% (22 companies) to 10.7% (20 companies).

Still stalled

Finnish nationals accounted for 77.3% of seats at both start and end of the period — no meaningful change. The figure has held between 77.3% and 78.2% in every reading since 2022; the only real move came in 2025, when the Finnish share fell from 78.2% to 77.3%. The most international industries are telecommunications (44.1% Finnish), health care (61.9%), and energy (62.5%) among market segments, Large Cap is the most international (58.4%). The most domestic industries are consumer staples (88.0%) and industrials (85.3%); among segments, Small Cap (87.8%) and First North (86.1%). Despite the continued global expansion of Finnish issuers, board internationalisation has not followed, and new listings still tend to arrive with fully domestic boards.

“Finnish listed companies are internationalising their business faster than their boards. If a company's growth comes from outside its home market, the board should include at least one director who has relevant business experience from that market. Today's digital board meeting systems make high-quality, frictionless board work possible across borders as well.”

Older over four years, marginally younger this half

Average board age eased from 57.6 to 57.0 over the half, and millennials (born 1980–1999) rose from 12.0% to 12.2% of seats. Over the full series, however, boards have aged by 1.3 years — from 55.7 at the end of 2022. Directors under 50 rose from 18.1% to 18.5%. Companies with no millennial director fell from 50.3% to 47.1% — still nearly half. Boardrooms remain anchored around directors in their late fifties.

“Diversity is measured by gender, nationality and age because those are measurable. A board's real capability, however, is a question of expertise: does the board's expertise match the tactics and the strategy the company intends to execute over the coming years. Composition is only the starting point. Diverse board work is not automatically effective, because different perspectives produce better decisions only if the way the board works lets them reach the table.”

Large Cap leads, First North lags

Large Cap companies continue to lead on gender and nationality, reaching 42.0% women by 30 June against 58.4% Finnish — the most balanced and most international segment. Small Cap posted the largest H1 gender gain of any segment (29.6% → 32.4%) and has the highest share of Finnish board members (87.8%), while First North remains the most homogeneous segment — the lowest share of women (27.5%) alongside the second-highest Finnish share (86.1%). By industry, consumer staples and technology posted the sharpest gender gains (36.1% → 40.0% and 29.5% → 32.9% respectively), and real estate remains the least gender-diverse at 25.0% women.

Gender — leaders and all-male boards, 30 June 2026

The ten highest of sixteen companies at or above 50% female representation, spanning large caps and small caps alike.

Eight companies still reported all-male boards. All of those are either First North or small cap companies.

Nationality, age and generational outliers

Companies with the lowest share of Finnish directors are not all the same case. Telia and Tallink Grupp are foreign-domiciled, where a fully non-Finnish board follows from where the company sits. Citycon is the more instructive one: a Finnish-domiciled Oyj that lost its last Finnish director inside this half, when its April AGM cut the board from ten seats to eight. Three of the eight remaining directors are tied to G City, the Israeli controlling shareholder. The board is not internationalising — it is consolidating around its owner.

Telia Company and Tallink Grupp are foreign-domiciled companies with secondary listings, included because the dataset covers Nasdaq Helsinki and First North Growth Market Finland listings regardless of country of domicile.

Even the youngest boards cluster at or above 45 — Talenom, at 40.8, is the only exception, underlining how rare a truly young board remains in the Finnish market.

Highest millennial representation

What the next reading will test

The gains ran ahead of what the rule required. Women hold 34.9% of board seats across the market and 42.0% in Large Cap, but the lowest shares sit in small caps and on First North — the segments largely outside the directive's size thresholds.

The open question is whether it continues without a deadline attached to it. Three things to watch: whether the eight all-male boards change at the 2027 AGMs, whether the female-chair share recovers the two chair positions it lost, and whether nationality moves at all after four years of essentially flat readings.

Risks 2026–2028

• A falling female-chair share suggests the pipeline into board leadership, not only membership, needs attention

• Persistently domestic boards may weigh on international competitiveness

• A director base still anchored in its late fifties poses succession questions

• Most of the four-year gender gain landed in 2025, before the deadline; the H1 2026 pace was roughly half that. Whether the trend survives the deadline is the question the next reading answers

Opportunities 2026–2028

• The 34.9% market average masks a working model: Large Cap already sits at 42.0%, so the pipeline exists — it has not reached the smaller segments

• The most international boards sit in the most international industries — telecommunications at 44.1% Finnish, Large Cap segment at 58.4%. Board composition follows the business

At a glance

In the first half of 2026, BlackRock's ownership grew in eight of the ten Finnish listed companies where its position is visible. Two of those increases were announced. The other six were not, because Finnish law only asks for an announcement when a holding crosses a reporting threshold. The lowest is 5 per cent, and none of these crossed it.

Ownership gained between the end of December 2025 and the end of June 2026, in basis points, with the number of BlackRock announcements each company published alongside. Register figures are drawn from Listeds executive intelligence.

* For Metso, Orion and Stora Enso the readings are the holdings reported at the crossings closest to each end of the window: Metso 12 February and 30 June, Orion 5 January and 17 June, Stora Enso beginning of January and 26 June. Nordea's second reading is end-July 2026; all other companies are 31 December 2025 to 30 June 2026. Nordea discloses its major shareholders rounded to the nearest 0.1 million shares (e.g. 194.6 million shares), so the share counts and changes shown for Nordea are approximations.

Basis points of ownership are used here because they survive the two things that distort share counts, dilution and buybacks, and because they mean the same thing to a chair and to a portfolio manager. One caution before reading the table: the three companies with announcements are measured as combined holdings, shares plus financial instruments, as filed. The seven others are measured as shares registered in BlackRock's own name.

Four of the five biggest increases, ranks two through five, produced no announcement at all, and 77 basis points of ownership changed hands across those four companies in silence.The 47 announcements cluster at the two ends of the table, at rank one and rank nine.

Metso gained 42 basis points without changing the percentage of shares held

Metso's share holding reads 4.98 per cent on 12 February and 4.98 per cent on 30 June. Identical to the second decimal across four and a half months, on a net movement of 39,519 shares. Over the same period the holding through financial instruments went from 0.09 to 0.52 per cent, taking the combined position from 5.08 to 5.50 per cent.

That is the largest increase in exposure to any Finnish listed company in this dataset, and a share register would not show it. Metso published eight announcements while it happened, each one describing a line being crossed rather than a position being built.

Stora Enso published twenty times and ended the half exactly where it started

At the beginning of January the Stora Enso holding read 4.26 per cent in shares and 0.73 per cent through financial instruments, 5.00 per cent in total. On 26 June: 3.81 per cent in shares, 1.19 per cent through financial instruments. Total, 5.00 per cent. The shares fell forty-five basis points, the financial instruments rose forty-six, and twenty announcements describe the round trip.

Orion is the only one of the three where the share holding itself crossed the line, from 4.97 per cent on 5 January to 5.01 per cent on 17 June, with financial instruments marginal throughout at 0.02 to 0.09 per cent. Nineteen announcements, eleven basis points.

For three years, the reinvention of the marketing chief into a growth owner has been reshaping the C-suite of America's Fortune 500. Finland's listed-company management teams never carried many CMOs to begin with, yet the same shift is now surfacing on Nasdaq Helsinki, and it arrives as a question for boards and CEOs, not for marketing.

On 15 September 2025, the Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer role at Rebl Group ended. Among the Chief titles the small-cap group kept was a different one: Chief Growth Officer. Taken alone, it is a single management change at one listed company. Taken against the wider record, it is one of the clearest Finnish instances yet of a shift documented at scale in the United States.
On 7 July 2026, Forrester published its third annual analysis of marketing leadership in the Fortune 500. Marketing executives who sit on the top team or report to the CEO are now found at 52% of F500 companies, down from 58% a year earlier.

The "chief marketing officer" title itself is used by just 36%, down from 49% in a single year. Forrester's Ian Bruce argues the decline reading misses the point: the role is not disappearing, it is being reinvented into chief growth officer, chief commercial officer and chief customer officer, giving one leader accountability for growth across the whole customer lifecycle.

Finland barely had CMOs to lose on the management teams

The temptation is to read this as an American story. Across the 188 companies actively listed on Nasdaq Helsinki and First North, seven have a standalone Chief Marketing Officer (not seven percent, seven companies), and not one of them is a large cap. All 33 Finnish large caps have zero. Where Forrester is tracking the CMO's decline at the top of the US market, the top of the Finnish market had already finished that decline before the story began.

But the absence of the CMO title is the wrong thing to fix on. The part of the American trend that matters is not the marketing chief leaving; it is where the growth mandate goes next, and who at the top table is made to own the number. On that question, the change is visible in Finland too.

Rebl kept a growth title where a marketing one used to sit. Raute appointed Arto Kaikkola as Chief Commercial Officer effective 5 May 2026, a seat that folds sales, marketing, communications and commercial excellence into a single owner. And the inflow follows the same shape, though not the same title. Of nine senior marketing hires across Finnish listed companies in 2025 and 2026, only one — Framery's acting CMO — holds a marketing-only Chief title. Two more reached Chief level with marketing bundled into something else: sustainability at Gofore, commercial duties at Raute. The remaining six arrived below Chief level entirely, as EVPs, SVPs, VPs or a Director. The new senior marketing hire in Finland rarely gets a Chief title of any kind, let alone a marketing-only one.

Where the CMO title does survive, it clusters among recent arrivals. Companies that listed in 2021 or later carry a standalone CMO at four times the rate of those listed earlier (9% against 2%), and hold any Chief-level marketing seat at more than triple the rate (16% against 5%). But this is not evidence that going public designs the role in: in three of the five recent-listing CMOs the title predates the IPO, so the pattern is really the marketing title fading among long-listed incumbents, not newer companies inventing it. For boards, that is the point. The growth-ownership question is sharpest exactly where most of the market sits, at the long-established companies that have already let the marketing title go.

Finnish listed companies saw 12 new CEOs take up the role in the second quarter of 2026, against 13 in Q1. Combined, the first half of 2026 has produced 25 new CEO starts, an H1 run rate of about 50 a year, still above the ~44 recorded across all of 2025. On a quarterly basis Q2 annualizes to roughly 48, easing from Q1's own 52-annualized reading.

On diversity the quarter brought no movement: all 12 who started were men, leaving the market-wide female CEO share at 8.1%. Large Cap recorded zero changes for a second consecutive quarter. The age profile, which had swung sharply younger in Q1, moved back up — and past the norm. Q2's new CEOs took up the role at an average age of 54, against an active population that started at about 50. Renewal continues, but the profile of who is renewed keeps shifting quarter to quarter.

Large Cap stays quiet

The most interesting continuity from Q1 is where CEO change still isn't happening. More than one in three Large Cap companies changed their CEO in 2025. Since then the tier has stood still: two full quarters, all of Q1 and all of Q2 2026, without a single new CEO starting. All 12 of the Q2 changes happened below Large Cap.

That freeze at the top is the quarter's defining pattern. Every one of the twelve changes landed in Small Cap, First North or Mid Cap — the segments that, on the index's own figures, tend to hire their CEOs youngest — while the largest companies, which take on their leaders at the oldest ages, chose not to move at all. The contrast points to something specific about how a large-cap board approaches the job.

By industry, the changes were more spread out than in Q1: Consumer Discretionary led with 4 (Duell, Martela, Tallink Grupp, Wetteri), followed by Industrials with 3 (Boreo, Summa Defence, Wulff-Yhtiöt), Financials and Technology with 2 each (Alisa Pankki, Titanium; Canatu, Siili Solutions), and Real Estate with 1 (Investors House).

The external-hire spike cools off

Of the 12 new CEOs who started in Q2 2026, 6 were external hires, 5 were promoted from within management, and 1 came from the board — Aarne Simula's move from the Wetteri board into the CEO seat is the only board-to-CEO transition of the quarter. That puts the external share at 50%, down from Q1's 62% but still running above the 47% share recorded across 2025 as a whole.

Two of the five internal promotions, however, were already serving as interim/deputy CEO: Aki Gynther at Alisa Pankki and Tomi Virtanen at Duell. Measured against the 10 starts that did change the leader, the external share is 6 of 10, or 60%.

New CEOs start older than the market norm

New CEOs who started in Q2 2026 averaged roughly 54 years of age (based on birth year) — about four years older than the ~50 average age at which the active population started, and a reversal of Q1's dip to 49–50.

At the younger end, Maximilian Slawinski (Canatu) and Peep Jalakas (Tallink Grupp), both born in 1985, stand out; at the older end, Jukka Akselin (Investors House), born in 1961, reflects continued demand for experienced operators in smaller, asset-heavy businesses. Q1's "renewal at the margins" signal did not carry through the second quarter.

“Leading a listed company is a genuinely different job, and boards look for proven experience and judgement. There is a deep pool of capable, more senior leaders at the moment, so an experienced profile is often the natural choice.”

Gender representation: a sharp step backward

Every one of the 12 new CEOs who started in Q2 2026 is male. That's a full reversal from Q1's already-thin 7.7% (1 of 13), and it pulls the point-of-entry figure well below the 8.1% share of women in the active CEO population (15 of 186). Two conseMany boards have already done the grouncutive quarters without meaningful female representation among new starters is a stronger signal than either quarter alone; across H1 2026 as a whole, 1 of 25 starts went to a woman — 4.0%, or roughly half the active-population share.

The baseline itself is moving the same way. The 9.3% figure carried forward from the 2025 CEO Index stands at 8.1% on the current snapshot, so representation is eroding through attrition among sitting CEOs as well as through the pipeline of new starters.

International hires remain the exception

The quarter saw two international starts. Maximilian Slawinski (German) joined Canatu and Peep Jalakas (Estonian) joined Tallink Grupp, leaving the Finnish share of new CEOs at 83.3% (10 of 12). As in Q1, international hires reflect specific sector or turnaround expertise rather than a broader shift in recruitment patterns.

The aggregate mix barely moves, and Q2 shows why: the intake arrived at almost exactly the rate already embedded in the population. Non-Finnish CEOs hold 16.7% of active roles (31 of 186), and non-Finnish starts made up 16.7% of the quarter's intake (2 of 12).

Internationalization is concentrated at the top of the market. Large Cap CEOs are 56.2% Finnish, against 80.8% in Mid Cap, 91.1% in Small Cap and 95.7% on First North. But it is not confined there: 17 of the 31 non-Finnish CEOs sit below Large Cap.

A CEO change is rarely a single change

Across the 12 companies that changed CEO in Q2 2026, at least 6 saw some kind of management-team change around the same time.

Not every departure was necessarily tied to the CEO change. Some were already planned. A few "exits" were really just a smaller management team, not someone leaving the company. Several companies saw no management-team change at all.

“A CEO change is rarely a single appointment. The board has usually set the direction already, and the new CEO arrives to execute it, which is what pulls a wider management-team rebuild behind it. Increasingly the assignment is a whole core team rather than one person.”

At a glance

About the data

The analysis draws on the Listeds Executive Intelligence platform and covers CEOs who started in the role at Nasdaq Helsinki main list and First North listed companies between 1 April and 30 June 2026. The index is keyed to the date each CEO takes up the position, not the date the appointment was announced. Active-population figures reflect a snapshot of 186 CEO roles as of 30 June 2026. Deputy CEO/Interim CEO promotions to CEO are counted as seperate CEO start.

Role equivalents to CEO are included in the count; titles in the dataset include President and CEO as well as Chairman of the Management Board. Companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki are included regardless of country of domicile. Market-cap segments reflect each company's classification as of the snapshot date, not the start date.

A CEO start that confirms a sitting interim or deputy CEO is counted and classified as an internal promotion. The external-hire share is reported on all starts, with a secondary figure excluding interim confirmations, since those do not change who leads the company.

Age figures are calculated from birth year.

Baseline figures for 2025 and Q1 2026 are carried forward from the CEO Index — Finland | 2025 and the CEO Index — Finland | Q1 2026.

The share has given back nearly half its June rally. Once the automatic fee-shares are removed, the insiders still trading on their own account lean one way, and it's the opposite way from the country's biggest pension funds.

On July 24, Nokia’s board chair Timo Ihamuotila bought 60,000 Nokia shares at a volume-weighted €8.45 — about €507,000 of his own money, disclosed three days later under the EU Market Abuse Regulation. He was buying into a slide that took the Helsinki-listed share from a €14.805 close on June 3 to €7.556 on July 29, a fall of about 49%. The stock still trades well above the roughly €3.4 it changed hands at a year ago, before Nokia's USD 1 billion NVIDIA AI-RAN partnership in October 2025 set off a run that carried it more than fourfold into June.

Not every insider "purchase" is a market call. Nokia's April 9 AGM set 2026 board fees at €440,000 for the Chair, €210,000 for the Vice Chair and €185,000 for each other member, and resolved that "approximately 40% of the annual fee will be paid in Nokia shares" — shares the directors must hold for their first three years,  so the near-identical share receipts booked for non-executives on May 4, and executives' incentive allocations (Jan 14, May 4, July 9), are compensation. Strip those out, and what's left are the voluntary, open-market trades.

On their own account, the flow tilts to buying.

Ihamuotila had already bought €537,400 on Jan 30 (close €5.42) and €454,805 on Apr 28 (close €9.41). His July 24 purchase was followed by CTO and AI Officer Pallavi Mahajan (around €520,426) and technology standards chief Patrik Hammarén (€365,480), Chief People Officer Kristen Pressner (€519,993) and Chief Geopolitical & Government Relations Officer Mikko Hautala (€55,689) — the last two buying at €7.84 on July 29, days after the Q2 report. Mid-rally, CEO Justin Hotard added €772,102 (Apr 28) - though under Nokia's co-investment long-term incentive arrangement, so not a purely discretionary open-market buy. Nearer the peak, in late May with the shares around €13, Konstanty Owczarek bought around €430,885 and €514,099 (May 22 and 26), and Victoria Hanrahan around €622,595. The only own-account sellers were ahead of the run: Raghav Sahgal (>€1m, Mar 10) and board member Thomas Dannenfeldt (€234,312, Mar 19). Read together, discretionary insiders have on balance been adding — the chair most visibly, on the way down.

Michael Eastabrook, former president and CEO of Canadian solid-waste equipment manufacturer Labrie Environmental Group, joins Hiab as president of Environmental Vehicle Solutions and a member of its leadership team, as the Finnish industrial machinery company deepens its presence in the North American waste and recycling market through its USD 1 billion acquisition of Labrie.

Eastabrook, who has led Labrie since 2021, will head Hiab's newly created Environmental Vehicle Solutions business area, built around the acquired operations. The appointment follows Hiab's reorganization from six divisions into broader business areas to improve scalability and customer focus. According to Hiab's recent press release, Environmental Vehicle Solutions becomes the company's fourth business area.

Eastabrook previously spent more than two decades at 4Front Engineered Solutions, an Assa Abloy division, including as president and CEO from 2018 to 2021 after serving in senior operations roles. Earlier, he was operations manager at Entrematic. He holds a BBA from Baylor University and an MBA from the University of Dallas. 

A leadership rebuild after the Cargotec demerger

Hiab, a provider of smart and sustainable load-handling solutions, became an independent listed company through Cargotec's multi-year demerger last year. Following the spin-off of Kalmar and the divestment of MacGregor, shareholders approved renaming the parent company to Hiab Oyj, which began trading on Nasdaq Helsinki under the ticker HIAB in April 2025.

Hiab enters the integration phase after a broad leadership overhaul following its separation from Cargotec. According to the Listeds CEO Index 2025, produced in partnership with SAM Headhunting, Hiab CEO Scott Phillips oversaw 19 management changes after becoming CEO, the largest post-CEO leadership transformation among Finnish listed companies. Eastabrook's appointment extends the top-level build-out.

Phillips called Hiab's acquisition of Labrie "a significant milestone in our growth journey" and said it is "perfectly aligned with our strategy of profitable growth communicated in 2024." The USD 1 billion transaction is Hiab's largest since becoming an independent listed company and is expected to contribute significantly to sales, profit, and cash flow from the third quarter of 2026.

What Hiab is trying to accomplish

The Labrie purchase advances the profitable growth strategy Hiab outlined in 2024. The acquisition is the company's second in six months, following the purchase of Brazilian loader-crane manufacturer ING Cranes, and expands Hiab's presence in two priority markets: North America and Brazil. Together with the new operating model, the acquisitions are intended to strengthen scalability and customer focus.

The expansion follows a year of resilient profitability despite softer demand. In 2025, sales declined 6% to EUR 1.6 billion, while the comparable operating profit margin increased to a record 13.7% from 13.2%, supported by record Services performance and cash flow from operations before finance items and taxes of EUR 308 million. After weaker US demand weighed on the second half of 2025, first-quarter 2026 orders increased to EUR 402 million, the order book grew to EUR 562 million, and the comparable operating profit margin recovered to 13.5%.

Hiab has maintained its 2026 guidance for a comparable operating profit margin above 13.5% following the acquisition. The transaction was financed with bank loans and cash on hand, while the company reported net cash of EUR 219 million and cash conversion above 100% before closing the deal. Hiab also continues to expand its services business, increase sales of its eco-portfolio products—which represented 46% of first-quarter 2026 sales—and pursue its climate targets of net-zero emissions from its own operations by 2040 and across its value chain by 2050.

Aspocomp has elevated quality management to the executive level as demand for advanced printed circuit boards continues to outpace European manufacturing capacity.

Former Acon Chief Operating Officer Ilkka Lohi joins Aspocomp as quality director on Sept. 2, 2026, becoming the first executive to hold a dedicated quality role on the printed circuit board manufacturer's management team.

Lohi will report to President and CEO Manu Skyttä and become the seventh member of Aspocomp's management team, according to the Finnish PCB maker’s recent press release. The role does not replace an outgoing executive but adds quality management to the leadership level for the first time. 

"As Aspocomp's strategy and our ongoing investment program progress, quality plays an increasingly central role," Skyttä said, adding that the company expects the new role to improve production quality, throughput, and profitability. "This is a strategically important new role for us that helps us systematically manage production quality and promote the company's quality culture.

Two decades of quality leadership

Lohi brings more than 20 years of quality-management experience across electronics and industrial manufacturing. At Finnish trampoline manufacturer Acon, he most recently served as chief operating officer after previously serving as CEO and leading supply chain and quality. Earlier in his career, he held quality leadership roles at Innohome, a provider of smart fire safety products, and Tongyu Technology Oy, a telecommunication component manufacturer.

Aspocomp, a Finnish manufacturer of high-end printed circuit boards used in semiconductor testing equipment, defense systems, telecommunications, and industrial electronics, is elevating quality as it builds on its financial turnaround. 

Net sales increased almost 40% to EUR 38.2 million in 2025, while the company returned to an operating profit of EUR 0.9 million after two years of losses. It is now investing more than EUR 10 million to modernize its only manufacturing plant, in Oulu, Finland, where it produces advanced high-density interconnection and high-layer-count circuit boards, to improve production quality and increase capacity by up to 50% by 2027.

Tuukka Paavola, former CFO of Nightingale Health, has left Bioretec as chief financial officer with immediate effect after serving less than six months, making him the medical device maker’s third finance chief within roughly a year. 

Controller Anna-Mari Venola will assume the CFO role on an interim basis while Bioretec begins recruiting a permanent successor, extending a period of management turnover that had appeared to stabilize when Paavola joined in January.

Bioretec and Paavola mutually agreed he would not continue in the role, the company announced yesterday. No reason beyond the mutual agreement was disclosed, and the company said no financial reporting issues were associated with the departure. 

Listeds reported earlier that Paavola had joined Bioretec early this year, succeeding interim CFO Anne-Mari Matikainen, who had taken over following Johanna Salko's departure. His appointment had marked what appeared to be a return to permanent leadership in the finance function after a period of interim management. 

A short tenure during a company reset

Paavola entered the company as it sought to reset its strategy after a turbulent 2025 marked by withdrawn financial targets, restated financial results, and changes across the executive team.

His first quarterly report as CFO showed net sales declining 13% year over year to EUR 1.2 million. The decline was driven by Rest of the World sales, while the company's priority markets expanded rapidly. US sales surged by more than five times to EUR 0.3 million, and European sales tripled to EUR 0.4 million. Adjusted sales margin improved to 70.1%, although EBITDA widened to a loss of EUR 1.4 million.

Following the quarter, Bioretec completed a rights issue raising around EUR 12.9 million in gross proceeds to strengthen its balance sheet and fund targeted growth.

Paavola also became one of the company's more heavily invested executives during his brief tenure, subscribing for EUR 20,000 of shares in April before purchasing a further EUR 9,900 on the market in May. Company records show he held almost three million shares at the time of his departure.

Thomas Morin, former chief executive at TC Transcontinental, will join Huhtamäki Oyj as president, Fiber Packaging, on Sept. 1, strengthening the executive team as the packaging group executes its 2030 strategy and reports improving sales trends.

Morin will report to President and CEO Ralf K. Wunderlich, the Finnish maker of sustainable packaging for food, beverages, and personal care products, announced recently. He succeeds Sara Engber, who recently became Huhtamäki’s president for North America following Ann O'Hara's departure. Engber has led Fiber Packaging on an interim basis since then. 

With Morin, Huhtamäki is bringing in an executive with more than 25 years of global packaging experience as business momentum begins to improve. He has led packaging businesses across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, having previously held senior roles at Amcor, Alcan and Pechiney. He has served as CEO of TC Transcontinental and holds a master's degree in finance from EM Lyon Business School. 

The Fiber Packaging business Morin will lead accounted for 10% of Huhtamaki's 2025 net sales, and manufactures molded fiber products, including consumer egg cartons and transport trays, fruit and vegetable trays, and berry boxes.

Completing a broad leadership reset

Morin's appointment caps an extensive rebuilding of Huhtamäki's leadership under Wunderlich, who became president and CEO in January 2025 after serving on the company's board. 

Since the new CEO joined, the company has made several key appointments. It chose Changsheng Wu to lead procurement, Engber to North America, Axel Glade to lead Flexible Packaging, Katariina Kravi to head HR, Safety and Communications, and Riikka Tieaho to lead Sustainability, Corporate Affairs and Legal. 

When Morin joins in September, only CFO Thomas Geust and President, Foodservice Packaging Fredrik Davidsson will have served on the executive team before the transition.

Vincit Oyj, a Finnish software development and digital services company, has added the leaders of its three revenue-generating business areas to its management team, aligning its top leadership with an AI-integrated strategy and a business-unit-led operating model.

Suvi Albert, business director of Core, Data & Analytics; Riku Kärkkäinen, business director of Composable Commerce; and Jarno Rikama, business director of Digital Solutions, joined the management team after previously serving in Vincit's extended leadership group. All members report to Chief Executive Officer Julius Manni. 

The company said the appointments strengthen decision-making and reinforce the role of business-area leaders in executing its strategy. 

Business-unit leaders move to the center of decision-making

Albert joined Vincit in February 2025 as business director of SAP Solutions & Core Processes after serving as head of SAP at KONE. She previously held roles at Fujitsu, Innofactor, and the Finnish Prime Minister's Office. She now leads the newly established Core, Data & Analytics unit, which combines SAP, data, and analytics capabilities following the Data Clinic acquisition.

Kärkkäinen, who joined Vincit in 2017, has led the Composable Commerce business since 2025 after earlier positions at Reima and Fiskars.

Rikama joined Vincit from Siili Solutions in January 2026 after serving there as a business director and management team member between 2022 and 2025. Earlier in his career, he held roles at Accenture and Solita.

The management team now comprises CEO Julius Manni, Chief Revenue Officer Mika Immo, Chief People Officer Mari Kuha, CFO Kimmo Kärkkäinen, and the three business directors.

Leadership overhaul completes broader restructuring

The appointments cap roughly a year of changes to Vincit's leadership. In August 2025, the company moved several executives, including Anssi Kuutti and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Petra Sievinen, from the management team into an extended leadership group. In January 2026, Deputy CEO and Chief Growth Officer Jens Krogell left the company, with his responsibilities absorbed by Julius Manni and the remaining leadership team.

The management changes have coincided with a board refresh. At the March 2026 annual general meeting, shareholders elected Taaleri CEO Ilkka Laurila and Posti Group SVP, General Counsel and M&A, Kaarina Ståhlberg to the board, adding listed-company finance and transaction experience as Vincit continues to pursue acquisitions.

Finance chief exits as Tieto advances leadership reset and 2026–2028 transformation

Tomi Hyryläinen, chief financial officer of Tieto, will leave the software and digital-engineering company at the end of December 2026 after nearly eight years in the role, opening a search for his successor as the company advances its software-led strategy and works toward its 2026–2028 financial targets.

Hyryläinen decided to leave on his own initiative to pursue opportunities outside the company and will remain on the group executive team through December to ensure an orderly handover, Tieto announced yesterday.

The search for a new chief financial officer begins immediately. Hyryläinen’s departure follows a board refresh, a series of executive team changes and the appointment of a new chief executive over the past year.

One of the architects of Tieto's transformation

Hyryläinen joined Tieto in 2018 from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he served as assurance leader and partner. Born in 1970, he holds an MSc (Econ.) from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration and has worked internationally, including in Sweden and Silicon Valley.

During Hyryläinen’s tenure at Tieto, he helped oversee the company’s transformation from Tietoevry into a more focused software and digital-engineering business. The group divested its Tech Services business, adopted the renewed Tieto brand, and reorganized around four businesses: Tieto Banktech, Tieto Caretech, Tieto Indtech, and Tieto Tech Consulting.

President & CEO Endre Rangnes credited Hyryläinen with playing a central role in the transformation. "I would like to thank Tomi for his leadership and commitment in driving the strategic transformation of Tieto. His finance leadership capabilities combined with solid business understanding have been highly valued and recognized across the company. I wish Tomi every success in his future endeavors," Rangnes said.

Leadership transition continues

The finance succession is the latest step in a wider leadership overhaul. Kimmo Alkio stepped down as chief executive in May 2025, with board member Endre Rangnes initially taking over on an interim basis before becoming permanent president and CEO. In May 2026, Bent Phillipps became interim managing director of Tieto Indtech, Johan Enger Nygaard moved to interim managing director of Tieto Tech Consulting, and Pär Johansson left the group executive team.

Hyryläinen's departure removes one of the longest-serving executives from the leadership team that led the company's transformation and leaves another key appointment to complete as management implements its new strategy.

Kurt Bossuyt, one of Raute's longest-serving executives, will leave the Lahti-based wood technology company as executive vice president of services and a member of the executive board by Sept. 24, 2026, as the company continues reshaping its leadership during a sharp downturn in demand. Raute has launched the search for his successor immediately.

Bossuyt joined Raute in 2016 and has served on the executive board since September 2019, making him, alongside EVP, Wood Processing Jani Roivainen, one of the longest-tenured members of the current leadership team and its only non-Finnish member. His departure will temporarily reduce the executive board from seven members to six until a successor is appointed. 

The company acknowledged Bossuyt's role in developing its services business. "I would like to thank Kurt for his valuable contribution in the Executive Board and the development of Raute's Services business unit, and wish him success in his future endeavors," President and CEO Mika Saariaho said in the company’s recent press release.

Bossuyt's departure caps a year of management changes. Arto Kaikkola was confirmed permanently as chief commercial officer in May after initially joining on an interim basis in late 2025, while Timo Kupsanen became EVP, Analyzers, and an executive board member on May 1, 2026, replacing long-serving executive Markus Sirviö in the leadership team. 

At board level, Anna Hyvönen joined as a director following the April AGM, while Chair Laura Raitio and Vice Chair Joni Bask remained in place, providing continuity as the executive team evolved.