Two releases, on 19 August. Nightingale Health spent its operating chief's role on commercial leadership ten weeks after cutting its growth target — while the finance seat stays with the founder.

Nightingale Health published two leadership releases on 19 August. 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. Both changes took effect that day. Both changes took effect that day, and the operating role Ranta leaves behind will not be filled.

Taken separately, the two releases are a busy morning in Helsinki. Taken together, they are one decision: Nightingale Health has turned an operating seat into a selling seat, at the point where it needs the Americas to start producing revenue.

The appointments move two leadership roles fully onto the commercial side

Following the appointments, two new seats now hold fully commercial roles. Suna tied the timing to a completed build phase. "In the past year, we invested heavily in refreshing our core product, the Nightingale Health Check. That work required strong operational management, and Janna had a crucial role in completing the successful product refresh. With strong data on product-market fit, I'm excited to allocate more investment to our commercial scaling, and I warmly welcome Janna to her new role."

The growth downgrade came first

Nightingale Health entered its 2025 to 2026 financial year targeting revenue growth above 50%, and restated that target in March alongside half-year revenue of EUR 2.41 million and an operating loss of EUR 8.80 million for July to December 2025. 

On 8 June it reduced the target to approximately 20%, plus or minus 5%, after roughly EUR 2 million of revenue from one project moved into the following financial year for reasons the company said were outside its control.

Suna's framing at the time was that "the reason is timing, not lost business," with revenue in the next financial year expected to exceed EUR 10 million.

Ten weeks later that framing has resource attached to it. 

The digital and legal appointments announced on 18 August complete a set. People, finance, digital and legal, four of nine Executive Board functions, 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 pay report with 90 percent of the votes represented against it.

Finnair appointed Arti Zeighami, 55, as Chief Digital Officer from 19 August 2026, and Kaarina Ståhlberg, 59, as Senior Vice President and General Counsel from 31 August 2026. Both join the Executive Board and report to CEO Turkka Kuusisto. Zeighami succeeds Antti Kleemola, who supports the handover until the end of September. Ståhlberg succeeds Sami Sarelius, who continues as an executive advisor to Finnair until the end of the year.

The two profiles do not overlap, and neither comes from aviation. Zeighami was most recently Partner and Director at Boston Consulting Group working on the scaling of artificial intelligence, and before that Chief Data and Analytics Officer at H&M Group.

Ståhlberg holds a Master of Laws, was Assistant General Counsel at Nokia and General Counsel at both Posti Group and Fortum, and sits on the boards of Finnish listed companies like Aspo, Finnair, Fiskars group, Vincit.

Four of nine functions changed. None of them touch daily commercial execution.

Finnair discloses a nine-member Executive Board covering products and customers, revenue, operations, digital services, finance and strategy, people and culture, communications, and legal affairs. Four of those have a new holder named this year.

Two of the four are already in the job. Sini Kivekäs became Chief People Officer and joined the Executive Board on 2 June, the day Kaisa Aalto-Luoto left it, four months after Finnair disclosed the departure on 19 January.

Ståhlberg starts in legal on 31 August. Finance follows on 1 November, when Jussi Siitonen becomes Chief Financial Officer in place of Pia Aaltonen-Forsell, who is leaving for the same role at Valmet.

The finance change carried a governance step. Siitonen was re-elected to the Board of Directors on 24 March and resigned from it on 24 July, the day his appointment was announced. Crossing from a non-executive seat to an executive one requires exactly that, and the board consequently runs with seven of the eight directors elected in March until the next general meeting.

The rebuild is being done from a record quarter, not a bad one

Second-quarter revenue was EUR 916.7 million, up 16.4 percent from EUR 787.7 million. The comparable operating result was EUR 78.4 million against EUR 10.3 million a year earlier, and passenger numbers rose 7.6 percent to 3.314 million.

Across the half year, revenue reached EUR 1,694.8 million from EUR 1,481.9 million, and the comparable operating result turned to EUR 77.8 million from a loss of EUR 52.3 million. The first quarter had already improved, with revenue up 12.1 percent to EUR 778.1 million and a comparable operating result of EUR -0.6 million.

Finnair raised its 2026 outlook on 22 July to revenue of EUR 3.4 to 3.5 billion and a comparable operating result of EUR 120 to 190 million, assuming no material disruption to fuel availability. Kuusisto called the quarterly figure "a record-high 78.4 million euros", which is the company's characterisation of its own result. July passenger volume rose 9.3 percent year on year.

Enabling functions are often rebuilt after a shock. These are being rebuilt while the numbers improve.

Weak consumer confidence has made First North small caps look cheap. Kai Tavakka of Accendo Capital argues the real constraint is ownership, not price. Small listed companies need committed, long-term owners who work with boards and management when the market is not paying attention.

“Short-term mood does not change what a company can become. It changes what you pay to own it.”

First North has been a hard place to own. The Nasdaq First North Finland index is down about 29% over the past year and about 65% over the past five, as of 6 August 2026. For many investors, that is a reason to stay away. For Kai Tavakka, Managing Partner of the Nordic active-ownership investor Accendo Capital, it is closer to the opposite.

"The mistake is to read a falling small-cap index only as a verdict on the companies inside it," Tavakka says. "Often it is also a verdict on confidence, liquidity and who is willing to own these companies through the cycle."

Why the segment got cheaper

Accendo ties the sell-off to consumer confidence. Appetite for smaller, higher-risk listed companies tends to follow it, and on Accendo’s reading confidence in Finland and Sweden has stayed weak since 2021. When households feel poorer and investors become more cautious, money moves toward larger, more familiar names. In a retail-driven market, the buyers for small and micro caps can disappear quickly.

“When confidence is low, money goes to whatever feels safe or is mainstream.”

“That pulls valuations down across the small-cap segment,” Tavakka says, “even when the potential of selected companies has not deteriorated in the same way.”

The result, on Accendo's reading, is a market where price can detach from quality. Tavakka points to a sharp compression in valuation multiples over the past five years, even as many underlying companies have improved their products, technology and cost structures.

"Of course, several companies have not delivered on their original growth ambitions," he says. "But in selected cases, we see the potential getting better while valuations have moved to new lows. That is where we see the opportunity."

Why cheap is not enough

This is where Accendo's case parts company with a simple "buy the dip" theme.

"Short-term mood does not change what a company can become," Tavakka says. "It changes what you pay to own it. The work in between is ownership: the right board, the right management, focused strategy, disciplined capital allocation and enough patience for the company to become worth more."

That is the part Accendo does itself. It runs a concentrated portfolio of Northern European small caps and works closely with boards, nomination committees and management teams rather than trading in and out. Tavakka was named Young Board Member of the Year at the 2025 Nordic Listed Leaders gala, recognition for that hands-on work.

Kai Tavakka winning the award: Young Board Member of the Year at the 2025 Nordic Listed Leaders gala. Photographer: Eino Ansio. Nordic Listed Leaders is part of Listeds

The companies it has owned and engaged with as an active owner include Finnish cybersecurity firm SSH Communications Security and Helsinki-listed game studio Remedy Entertainment, alongside Swedish names such as the connectivity infrastructure group Hexatronic. On its own analysis, the entry point for the Nordic small- and micro-cap segment is among the most attractive it has seen in years.

Kimmo Kärkkäinen will take over as Digia's CFO by February 2027 at the latest, arriving from Vincit's finance seat. It is the second time since 2017 that Digia has filled its CFO role with a sitting CFO from another Nasdaq Helsinki company, a pattern Listeds examines across the wider market in a companion piece.

Digia has appointed Kimmo Kärkkäinen (b. 1972) as Chief Financial Officer and a member of the management team, effective by February 2027 at the latest, reporting to President and CEO Timo Levoranta. Kärkkäinen joins from Vincit, where he is currently CFO, and has previously held CFO roles at Fira Group and leadership positions at Sitedrive Oy, private-equity firm Bocap, Affecto Plc, and TeliaSonera.

He succeeds Kristiina Simola, who announced on 21 April 2026 that she would step down to pursue a board career after serving as Digia's CFO since 2017. Simola remains in post through the transition, with an outside date of end-October 2026.

Vincit has confirmed Kärkkäinen's resignation "to join another company," with him continuing in role during a transition period until the beginning of November 2026 at the latest while it recruits a successor. CEO Julius Manni thanked him for developing the company's processes and leadership culture.

On the appointment, Kärkkäinen said: "Digia has made an impressive journey as a profitable growth company, and it has a strong position in the Finnish software and services market. I am excited to join Digia in building its next phase. As Chief Financial Officer, I want to support the implementation of the strategy and the growth of shareholder value together with a skilled team.”

Levoranta cited Kärkkäinen’s “strong experience in financial management and business development,” as well as his experience in mergers and acquisitions and in building growth companies and new businesses.

Raisio spent 2025 preparing to grow: it sold off a loss-making plant-protein unit, set hard 2027 targets and built a standing M&A function. Then it handed the company to Elli Siltala, a food-industry veteran of around 25 years at Valio, who has said her first priority is to listen and learn before setting a direction. The plan is already built. The open question is how Raisio's new chief executive chooses to take it forward.

Raisio is a Finnish brand house. It’s worth sits in names: Benecol, brand sold on cholesterol lowering products, and Elovena, the oats brand, both marketed well beyond Finland, alongside home-market staples such as Sunnuntai baking goods, Torino pasta and Nalle cereals.

Growing a brand house means one of two things: build the brands harder, or buy new ones. Raisio's board has said, in writing, that it intends to do both, and it has spent the past eighteen months building the capacity to do the buying.

On Wednesday, 12 August 2026, the company publishes its half-year report. Elli Siltala, appointed CEO on 7 August, does not start until 1 September; until then the outgoing Pasi Flinkman holds the seat.

The board chose the tool. The CEO chose to listen

Chairman Arto Tiitinen said in the appointment release that "under Elli Siltala's leadership our ambition is to grow the company through both organic growth and acquisitions." Read against the run of Nordic CEO-change releases, that is a pointed line. Boards usually credential the incoming chief executive and gesture at a "next phase." Tiitinen named the instrument, acquisitions, and set the direction before Siltala set foot in the building.

Siltala's own words went the other way. After the standard opening, she closed on this: "My first priority will be to listen, learn and build a shared understanding of how we can create long-term value for our shareholders, customers and employees."

Across the incoming-CEO releases on Listeds Executive Intelligence database, that is unusual. Most new chief executives arrive with at least a directional theme on day one: a capability to strengthen, a strategy to keep executing, a model to scale. Siltala, in this set, is the only one to make listening itself the priority and to leave the agenda more open.

Bioretec has appointed Panu Mikkonen as chief financial officer from 6 October 2026, the fourth person to be named to the role since September 2025.

The appointment itself is quite routine. What stands out is the pattern around it: of roughly 400 management-team changes at Finnish listed companies that Listeds has tracked so far in 2026, Bioretec's finance function stands out for cycling through four CFOs (two of them interim) in just over a year, a pace uncommon for the role.

How the CFO role changed hands

Anne-Mari Matikainen took over as interim CFO with immediate effect on September 15, 2025, while outgoing CFO Johanna Salko stayed on to support the transition until her departure on November 30, 2025. Tuukka Paavola became permanent CFO on January 20, 2026, but Bioretec disclosed his departure barely six months later, on July 2, 2026. Anna-Mari Venola stepped in as interim CFO the same week to bridge to Mikkonen. Mikkonen is the fourth person to hold or be named CFO in roughly 13 months.

Frequent leadership changes cut two ways. Rapid turnover carries a cost of its own, in lost continuity and institutional memory, but replacing a poor fit quickly can equally signal decisiveness.

Two of the four moves were interim appointments, the usual way a company covers a gap while it searches, not four permanent hires that failed. Interim finance chiefs are in many cases also confirmed in the job later, though at Bioretec neither was made permanent.

All four CFO changes have unfolded under a single chief executive, Sarah van Hellenberg Hubar-Fisher, who became CEO after serving an interim position since May 2025, only in August 2025, weeks before the first of them; new chief executives often rebuild the finance function around themselves, and some of the turnover may reflect that. Bioretec has not disclosed the reasons behind each departure.