Executive appointments

Elecster's board has named Deputy CEO Juuso Halonen as chief executive from 1 December 2026. Arto Kinnunen, CEO since 2017 and with the group for more than 30 years, leaves the role on 30 November and stays on as management advisor. On the same day, CFO Veronika Halonen becomes deputy CEO, eleven months after taking the finance role.

The March deputy appointment was the succession plan

On 5 March, Elecster appointed Halonen deputy CEO and a member of the management team from 30 March, reporting to Kinnunen. The stated remit was global sales and marketing and the development of management systems. Seven months later, the board has confirmed what that move signalled.

Halonen is an insider in every sense. He joined the group in 2011, has been CIO since 2019 and has sat on the board since 2024. At the time of the March appointment he held 32,705 Elecster shares. The company says Kinnunen's advisory role is meant to secure continuity through the year-end financial statement process, which places the first results under the new CEO in early 2027.

“Juuso knows Elecster, its business, personnel and international operating environment very well. The Board believes that his long experience with the company and the close work with Arto in recent months create a strong foundation for transferring the CEO's responsibility and further developing Elecster's operations,” says Jukka Halonen, Chairman of the Board, in the press release.

“I am pleased that the change of CEO can be implemented in a planned and controlled manner. I have worked closely with Juuso, and I can confidently transfer the responsibility of CEO to him,” says Arto Kinnunen.

He inherits a company whose order book has halved since March

The numbers Halonen takes over are thin. First-half 2026 revenue fell around 5.2% to EUR 15.8 million, and operating profit dropped to EUR 0.1 million from EUR 0.5 million a year earlier. The order backlog stood at EUR 4.8 million at the end of June, down from EUR 8.6 million at the end of March, as the Middle East conflict delayed customer investment decisions. A fire at the Kenyan subsidiary in Nairobi added around EUR 0.4 million in one-off costs.

The longer trend points the same way. Full-year 2025 revenue fell around 3.6% to EUR 32.7 million, and operating margin narrowed to 3.0% from 4.7%. The April AGM approved no dividend. The Russian packaging business, which the company says it will keep running for now, is the risk it flags most directly in the H1 report. Elecster still guides for revenue growth and improved earnings per share in 2026.

Halonen's own priorities match the gap. He names international sales and marketing, the service business and presence in core markets as the areas to develop, while keeping profitability as a cornerstone.

“Reliability, customer focus and profitability remain the cornerstones of our operations. At the same time, we must develop international sales and marketing, service business, our products and operating methods, and strengthen our presence and customer cooperation in our key market areas,” says Juuso Halonen in the press release.

LapWall Corporation has named Tiina Määttä as Chief Financial Officer and Legal Officer, one day after announcing the departure of CFO Tuomo Riihonen. Määttä joins the management team on 1 October 2026. She takes over finance at the point where the company's full-year guidance depends on a sharper second half and on a factory ramp-up that has already slipped once.

Riihonen's employment ended on 24 September, the day his exit was announced, with CEO Jarmo Pekkarinen covering the CFO duties in the interim. No reason was given. Seven weeks earlier, Riihonen presented the half-year results alongside Pekkarinen. 

The first half delivered growth, but the guidance needs a margin step-up

LapWall's January to June revenue rose 24.0% to EUR 23.3 million, and EBITA grew 80.1% to EUR 2.0 million. The EBITA margin reached 8.6%, against 5.9% a year earlier. Between quarters, however, the margin moved the other way, falling from 9.5% in the first quarter to 7.9% in the second, although both were ahead of the prior year 

The company kept its guidance for 2026 of EUR 49 to 54 million in revenue and EUR 4.8 to 5.8 million in EBITA. 

Order backlog gives visibility, the Pyhännä factory sets the pace

Demand is not the constraint. The order backlog reached EUR 25.4 million at the end of June, the highest in the company's history, and the offer pipeline stood at nearly EUR 60 million. Pekkarinen pointed to data centre construction as a growing segment, including a supply agreement for XTX Markets' data centre project in Kajaani.

Capacity is the variable. The new Pyhännä factory, LapWall's largest investment to date, was about 95% complete on a cost basis at the end of June. In April, the aim was single-shift production across the whole factory during 2026. By August, the target to meet the investment's production goals had moved to the final quarter of the year, with the company noting that ramp-up remained behind its original schedule. Headcount rose from 127 to 143 over the year to June.

Ville Raatikainen, a manufacturing engineering director at iLOQ with an R&D and product management background at Nokia, joins the Management Team on January 1, 2027. He is the second outside hire to the team since July, and he starts in the year the PCB maker commissions its expanded Oulu plant.

Aspocomp has appointed Ville Raatikainen (born 1984), M.Sc. (Eng.), as Chief Engineering and Technology Officer and a member of the Management Team from January 1, 2027. He currently serves as Director, Product Lifecycle and Manufacturing Engineering at iLOQ Oy and previously held R&D and product management roles at Nokia. Chief Technology Officer Mitri Mattila will stay with the company and report to Raatikainen. Mattila has worked at Aspocomp since 1997 and sat on the Management Team since 2018. 

Chief executive Manu Skyttä's endorsement speaks to production as much as to technology:

Ville has a strong track record in managing complex technical environments, improving production performance, and developing high-quality, cost-effective design operations. He has a strong background in both global listed companies like Nokia and fast-growing technology companies like iLOQ, and I am pleased to welcome him to Aspocomp. 

Six of seven Management Team members will have joined since 2024

Raatikainen follows Ilkka Lohi, who became Quality Director on September 2, 2026 in a role the company raised to Management Team level. Listeds data shows how far the renewal runs. Skyttä became chief executive in 2024 after serving as EVP, Operations at Patria, and Pekka Holopainen joined the team as operations chief the same year. Hanna-Leena Keskitalo and Terhi Launis followed in 2025, with Launis taking over finance on September, 2025. When the January 2027 line-up takes effect, Antti Ojala, a member since 2013, will be the only one whose seat predates 2024.

This is a team assembled for the expansion, not inherited from the loss years. The board supplies the sector memory. Chairman Ville Vuori is a former Incap chief executive, and director Anssi Korhonen was CTO of VTI Technologies.

The hire lands as Oulu moves from construction to yield

The Oulu program is worth more than EUR 10 million and aims to lift throughput capacity by up to 50%. Demand had already outrun the plant. At the strategy launch in November 2025, Skyttä said: “The capacity of the Oulu plant has been fully utilized throughout 2025, and demand has already exceeded our capacity.The growth in demand in our largest customer segments appears likely to continue over the next 5–10 years.” The building extension was finished on schedule and within budget, and new capacity is to be commissioned in phases throughout 2027. By July the automated warehouse was running, factory acceptance tests for new production lines had begun, and management said the second half would center on production quality and yield.

The risks are operational. Spare-parts shortages after an equipment manufacturer's bankruptcy slowed deliveries in the first quarter. Delivery times for laminates, fiberglass, resins and copper foil are lengthening and prices are rising, and the company warns that the installations may temporarily disrupt production. Those are manufacturing engineering problems, and that is the experience Raatikainen brings from iLOQ.

A record order book still has to turn into margin

The order book reached a record EUR 25.9 million at the end of June, with parts stretching to late 2027. Semiconductor customers placed 38% of second-quarter orders and defense customers 25%, while the five largest customers' share of net sales fell to 58% (75%). Profit has lagged, weighed down until the second quarter by low-margin orders agreed in 2024. Skyttä's position is unambiguous: “We expect profitability to improve in the second half of the year.”

Two stock exchange releases at 9:00 a.m. on 16 September moved one CFO between two Helsinki large caps that had cut guidance two days apart in July. Terveystalo named no successor and opened the search the same day — twelve days after handing Pajunen a second executive brief. Tieto filled the seat with a sitting CFO, which is the only way the job has been filled in Finland since December 2025.

Terveystalo and Tieto published matching stock exchange releases at 9:00 a.m. EEST on 16 September 2026. Pajunen, Terveystalo's Chief Financial Officer since November 2022, leaves on 15 December 2026 and joins Tieto by 1 January 2027 at the latest, reporting to Endre Rangnes. Terveystalo named no successor and opened the search the same day. The same Tieto release confirmed Johan Enger Nygaard at Tieto Tech Consulting and Bent Philipps at Tieto Indtech from 1 October, both interim since May 2026. 

Tieto's last first-time CFO is leaving; the next one arrives with the title

In August, Listeds counted atleast ten CFO changes across Nasdaq Helsinki and First North between December 2025 and August 2026. Every incoming CFO already held the title at another listed company. None was promoted from inside. None was taking the job for the first time. 

Tomi Hyryläinen, who steps down at the end of December 2026 after nearly eight years, joined Tieto in 2018 from PwC Finland, where he had been an assurance leader and partner. Tieto was his first listed-company CFO seat. Tieto has now filled it with a CFO already running finance at another Helsinki large cap, and before that at AFRY and Pöyry Group. 

Terveystalo widened Pajunen's job twelve days before losing him

Terveystalo reports in three segments today: Healthcare Services, Portfolio Businesses and Sweden. On 4 September it said Portfolio Businesses would be split from 1 January 2027, with Oral Health and Public Partnerships each becoming a reportable segment in their own right, and named Pajunen EVP of Portfolio Businesses until the end of 2026. He was covering for Henri Mäenalanen, who had announced on 29 June that he was leaving on 1 October to run Yliopiston Apteekki. Twelve days after taking the second brief, Pajunen announced his own exit. 

The date lands inside a crowded quarter. The EUR 574 million Silmäasema acquisition is expected to close by late 2026 or in the first quarter of 2027, the four-segment reporting starts on 1 January, and the Shareholders' Nomination Board must deliver its proposals by 1 February 2027. The CFO search runs across all of it.

Ville Iho put it in the company's own words: "Juuso has played a key role in the implementation of Terveystalo's profit improvement program and significant acquisitions, as well as in the development of financial leadership.”

One balance sheet is being levered up, the other handed back

Terveystalo reported first-half revenue of EUR 601.5 million, down 10.0%, adjusted operating profit of EUR 59.8 million, down 29.3%, and earnings per share of EUR 0.24, down 44.4%. On 15 July it cut 2026 adjusted operating profit guidance to EUR 120–140 million from EUR 135–165 million, against EUR 156.3 million delivered in 2025. It has raised its leverage ceiling to 3x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, cut dividend distribution to at least 50% of net result, and committed EUR 275 million in cash plus 36,500,000 new shares to Silmäasema, roughly 22.4% of shares outstanding after completion. 

Tieto reported second-quarter revenue of EUR 426.6 million, down 7.9%, with adjusted operating profit up 45.1% to EUR 63.4 million and margin at 14.9% against 9.4%. It cut its organic growth outlook on 17 July to between –5% and –3% and held the margin range at 14.8–15.8%. 

At Tieto he set the brief himself: "Tieto has a strong position in technological transformation and is well positioned for digital opportunities. At the same time, both Tieto and the entire industry are undergoing rapid changes, driven by AI. I am excited to join this fast-paced industry and believe that, with my broad experience across multiple businesses, I can contribute to the execution of Tieto’s ambitious strategy. As a CFO, I will focus on ensuring profitable growth and value creation while I believe that it all starts with culture."