A family transfer twenty years in the making moved 12.18% of Sanoma into a single company. Eight days later, the body that proposes Sanoma's next board had two pension insurers sitting on it — and the family branch that used to hold half its seats held one.

On 9 September 2026, Sanoma disclosed that Robin Langenskiöld and Rafaela Seppälä had transferred their entire shareholdings — 19,928,117 shares, 12.18% of the company — to RR & Co Ab, a newly formed vehicle owned by their children and grandchildren. The price was €7.2428 a share, €144,335,366 in total, executed on Nasdaq Helsinki. The stated purpose was to hold the family's stake under one roof and to avoid, in the filing's words, "avoidable fragmentation of ownership".

Read as a €144 million exit, the trade is misread. Nothing left the family.

The staircase and the cliff

The two siblings arrived at the same destination by opposite routes.

Robin Langenskiöld held 12,273,371 Sanoma shares in July 2006 and 12,273,371 in August 2026 — the same figure in all 239 monthly snapshots of the Listeds register. His percentage drifted from 7.70% to 7.50%, but that was dilution, not disposal. His only change of position came in March 2014, when Antti Herlin added 2,706,979 shares in a single month and moved him from second-largest shareholder to third.

His sister began at 12,273,370 shares — one share fewer, the signature of a divided inheritance. Her holding then fell four times, and each fall is matched, to the share, by increases in holders carrying her family's names:

Four transfers, 4,618,624 shares, each split into exact halves between two branches of descendants — and 12,273,370 less 4,618,624 leaves 7,654,746, the holding she transferred in September. A register records positions rather than counterparties, so the pairing is inference rather than disclosed fact. It is a strong one: a seller's decrease matching two buyers' increases to the single share, four times across fifteen years, is not a market coincidence.

So Seppälä handed her stake down across eighteen years and five tranches. Langenskiöld handed his down in one afternoon, after two decades of not moving a share.

What the consolidation was fixing

By August 2026 this one branch of the family occupied eleven separate lines of Sanoma's register, holding 28,241,098 shares between them — 17.24% of the company, spread across three generations and four surnames. The September transfer gathered 12.18% of that into a single vehicle. The remaining 5.06% stays where it was, held individually by descendants.

That is the argument the filing makes without spelling it out. The fragmentation it sets out to prevent is visible in the register, name by name, and it is the direct product of eighteen years of orderly succession. Handing a stake down in installments preserves a family's economics and slowly dismantles its ability to act as one shareholder. RR & Co Ab is the correction — and the reason the larger position, Langenskiöld's untouched 12,273,371 shares, was never handed down at all until a vehicle existed to receive it.

Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company was named Defence Owner of the Year 2026 on Monday evening at Valkoinen Sali in Helsinki, at the first Listeds Investor Event – Defence. The award is new, and so is the thing it measures. Not how much an institution owns, but what it has done with the ownership.

Finland has prizes for companies and prizes for chief executives. Owners have gone unrewarded.

“In Finland we reward companies and executives, but not owners. We wanted to create a category that measures an owner's actions: where the capital went, and what was done with the ownership”

The jury scored what Ilmarinen did, not what it held

The jury was chaired by Tiina Olkkonen, founder and chair of IR Partners, and included Sanna Andersson of Euroclear Nordics, Kyösti Jurvelin of Talouselämä and Klaus Ilmonen of Hannes Snellman.

Three things decided it. Ilmarinen anchored Reaktor's listing earlier this year and is now the company's largest institutional owner. It joined a funding round for the unlisted ICEYE. And it sits on the shareholders' nomination boards of roughly 40 Finnish listed companies every year, which is a direct lever on who ends up in those boardrooms.

“Defence capability is not created by public defence spending alone. Behind it you need competitive companies, innovation and patient private capital. In a changed security environment, institutional investors have an important role in making sure that defence and dual-use innovations born in Finland have the conditions to grow into internationally successful companies. That is why we wanted to reward an owner that does not merely invest in the sector but, through its own actions, is helping to build it.”

That last point is the one the jury kept returning to. Defence and dual-use companies are growing quickly, and the competence their boards need is moving just as fast.

Eight companies pitched, five of them listed

Gofore, Kesla, Savox Communications and Aspocomp Group, all on Nasdaq Helsinki, and Betolar from Nasdaq First North pitched the defence and dual-use side of their businesses to a room of professional investors. Audicin, Njord and AGATE Sensors followed in the growth round with three minutes each.

Martti Wallin, venture partner at Sparkmind Capital and a past chairman of the Association of Finnish Defence and Aerospace Industries, opened the evening with a conversation on what investors and leaders get wrong about defence.

Two new listed chief executives, and neither was chosen by the board that will supervise them. Four finance seats moved, and not one went to a first-time CFO.

On 3 August, Aspo named the chief executive of a company that will not trade until January. On 31 August, UPM's shareholders elected the board of one that will not trade until November, six weeks after its chief executive had already been named. Both appointments were internal. Neither went through a search.

According to Listeds Executive Intelligence, Nordic listed companies recorded 57 board and management changes in August: 51 in management teams and 6 at board level. Boards accounted for roughly one change in ten for a second consecutive month — and most of the board activity that did happen was produced by corporate structure rather than by nomination committees. Every one of the month's larger moves was at a Helsinki issuer or at a Helsinki issuer's Nordic subsidiary.

The demergers set the month's bookends

Aspo's board approved the demerger plan separating ESL Shipping into a new listed company on 3 August and appointed Matti-Mikael Koskinen as chief executive of ESL Shipping Group Plc the same day. Koskinen has run ESL Shipping Ltd since 2013. The demerger completes on 31 December, trading is expected to start on or about 4 January 2027, and the company's own board will not be elected until an extraordinary general meeting on 7 December, four months after its chief executive was named. Rolf Jansson, Aspo's chief executive, is intended to be elected chair.

At the other end of the month, UPM's extraordinary general meeting on 31 August approved the plywood demerger and elected WISA Group Plc's board: Tapio Korpeinen as chair, Mats Nordlander as deputy chair, and Sakari Ahdekivi, Frank Herrmann, Nina Kiviranta and Emmanuelle Picard as members. Tuija Suur-Hamari had been named WISA's President and CEO six weeks earlier, on 16 July. The demerger is expected to complete on or about 31 October, with trading from 2 November, nine weeks after the board was seated.

Under the Finnish Corporate Governance Code, appointing the chief executive is the board's own duty. A demerger inverts that sequence, and there is no other way to staff a company that does not yet exist. The consequence, on this author's reading rather than anything either company has said, is that both new boards take office with their most consequential appointment already made, and their first exercise of that duty will be a review rather than a choice.

One thing the WISA sequence does change: Suur-Hamari will be one of a small number of women running a Helsinki-listed company. Listeds’ CEO Index — Finland | Q2 2026 shows women holding 8.1 per cent of the 186 sitting chief executive roles at 30 June, and one of the 25 first-half starts. Women held 8.1 per cent of the 186 sitting chief executive roles at 30 June, and one of the 25 first-half starts. August added a second name to that pipeline — Elli Siltala, appointed chief executive of Raisio plc on 7 August.

The finance seat moved sideways, or not at all

The month's finance moves were the mirror image of a market hiring new talent into the role.

Digia filled its chief financial officer seat on 5 August by taking Vincit's sitting CFO, Kärkkäinen — the second time since 2017 that Digia has filled the role with a sitting CFO from another Nasdaq Helsinki company. Bioretec named Panu Mikkonen chief financial officer from 6 October, the fourth person named to that seat since September 2025, two of them interim. Kempower appointed Juha Jaatinen interim chief financial officer on 13 August. 

No Helsinki company promoted a first-time chief financial officer into the role in August. 

Eight executives named in two days

Three companies named eight executives across 18 and 19 August.

Nordea's 19 August release did two things at once. It merged Group Risk and Group Compliance into a single function under Mark Kandborg, who continues on the Group Leadership Team, with Nahale Ståhl Hallengren as Chief Compliance Officer from the same date, outside the Group Leadership Team. And it filled leadership in the bank's two largest customer units: Per Långsved, who joined Nordea in 2019 as Head of Personal Banking Sweden and Country Senior Executive, becomes Head of Personal Banking and joins the Group Leadership Team; Randi Marjamaa, at Nordea since 2006, takes a newly created Business Banking leadership post and also joins the Group Leadership Team. Sara Mella steps back from operational roles.

Nightingale Health removed its operating chief's role on 19 August and put two commercial chiefs in its place, at the point where its Americas business needs to produce revenue. Janna Ranta, chief operating officer since May 2025, became Chief Commercial Officer, Research and Healthcare. Hugh Watson, who has spent 25 years in United States laboratory diagnostics, joined from outside as Chief Commercial Officer, Americas.

Finnair named its digital and legal chiefs on 18 August. With those two, four of the nine Executive Board functions — people, digital, legal and finance — have a new holder named in 2026. The chief executive, operating, revenue, customer and communications seats have not moved. The rebuild is running from the strongest quarter Finnair has reported, and from a general meeting that rejected the company's remuneration report with 90 per cent of the votes represented against it.

The half in which the EU board gender directive fell due, measured against the Listeds board composition dataset. Women's share of board seats rose 1.3 points. The share of female chairs fell from 12.0% to 10.7%.

According to the Board Index — Finland H1 2026 study by Listeds and Admincontrol, women's share of board seats on Nasdaq Helsinki rose from 33.6% to 34.9% over the first half of the year. The gain was 1.3 percentage points in six months, continuing the upward trend that began in 2022 (28.2%). 30 June 2026 was the compliance deadline for the EU directive on gender balance on the boards of listed companies (Directive (EU) 2022/2381). The largest single-year gain, however, came in 2025, when the share climbed 3.0 points from 30.6% to 33.6% — a full year before the deadline took effect.

The 40% target applies to a narrower group than the market average covers

The market-wide average still falls short of the directive's 40% target. The directive's obligations, however, apply only to companies above certain size thresholds — in Finland, more than 250 employees and either a balance sheet above €43 million or turnover above €50 million — whereas the Board Index figures cover the whole of Nasdaq Helsinki and the First North market. In the Large Cap segment, which comes closest to the group in scope, the threshold was passed: women held 42.0% of board seats at the end of June. Market-cap segment is an approximation rather than the legal test: some Mid Cap companies clear the employee and turnover thresholds, while a few Large Cap companies with small workforces do not. The lowest shares sit in small companies and on First North, which are largely outside the directive's scope.

One woman on the board is no longer enough

The change over the first half was not only a matter of volume. The emphasis shifted from appointing a first woman to filling more than one seat: the share of companies with only one woman on the board fell from 26.2% to 21.9%. At the same time, the share of companies where more than 40% of directors are women rose from 24.0% to 27.8%.

By segment, the largest step was taken in Small Cap companies, where women's share rose from 29.6% to 32.4%. First North remains the most male-dominated market segment: women hold just 27.5% of board seats there. By industry, the sharpest gains came in consumer staples (36.1% → 40.0%) and technology (29.5% → 32.9%). Real estate remains the least gender-diverse industry, with women at 25.0%.

Eight all-male boards — and fewer female chairs than before

One indicator stood still, the other turned down. The number of all-male boards remained at eight companies (4.4% → 4.3% of companies), and all of them are Small Cap or First North companies: Digitalist Group, Dovre Group, Eagle Filters Group, Norrhydro Group, Pallas Air, Summa Defence, Sunborn International and Titanium.

The share of female chairs fell from 12.0% (22 companies) to 10.7% (20 companies). Progress in board membership has therefore not yet reached the head of the table.

At the other end of the range, a group of companies has reached or passed gender parity. The highest shares of women were at Suominen (66.7%), Aktia Bank and Verkkokauppa.com (both 57.1%) and Huhtamäki (55.6%). Fiskars, Kempower, Orion, Stora Enso, Administer and Modulight landed at exactly 50%.

Internationalisation did not move at all

The nationality mix was entirely unchanged: Finnish nationals held 77.3% of board seats both at the start and at the close of the half. In every reading since 2022 the figure has sat between 77% and 78%. The only real movement in the series came in 2025, when the Finnish share fell from 78.2% to 77.3%.

Internationalisation is concentrated in a small number of large companies and in certain industries. 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% Finnish). The most domestic industries are consumer staples (88.0%) and industrials (85.3%); among segments, Small Cap (87.8%) and First North (86.1%). The internationalisation of Finnish listed companies' business has not carried through to their board composition, and new listings still arrive on the exchange with largely all-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.”

Average age edged down

The average age of boards fell from 57.6 to 57.0 years over the half. Across the full series, however, boards have aged: the average has risen from 55.7 years at the end of 2022, with the sharpest single move — up 1.1 years — in 2025 alone. Millennials (born 1980–1999) rose from 12.0% to 12.2% of board seats, and directors under 50 from 18.1% to 18.5%. The share of companies with no millennial director fell from 50.3% to 47.1%.

Even the youngest boards sit at or above 45 years of age. The only exception is Talenom, whose board has a calculated average age of 40.8 years and where 80.0% of directors are millennials.

Most of the adjustment came before the deadline, not because of it

Progress over the first half was broader than regulation alone requires, as shares also rose outside the directive's size thresholds. The open question is whether it continues without a deadline attached to it. The pattern in the data suggests much of the adjustment was anticipatory: the largest annual gain came in 2025, before the deadline, and the pace roughly halved in the half when compliance actually fell due.

“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.”

Summary

Read the full index: Board Index — Finland | H1 2026

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

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.