Lifelong learning
I graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology, currently known as Aalto university, back at 2001. Although my history of labour dates back to 1988 when I received my first official salary.
I began my career as an engineer responsible for designing maritime fairways e.g. roads for ships and I was part of the Vuosaari harbour design team. Virtual presentation models were a new thing and pretty soon I was headhunted into an ITC company where my duties were first at the technical sales support and later as a project manager for serving public and private sector companies in different IT projects.
I got a bit fed up of cleaning other people’s mess in my work and started post-graduate studies and working as a researcher at the Technical Reserch Center of Finland. But then I was headhunted again, into the ITC business (again) and I moved to Norway to work and live there. I worked as a senior project manager and as a product manager. I was quite deep in the R&D as well and had two teams of brilliant if sometimes absent minded developers in Bangkok and Hanoi.
In the end of the first decade of the millenium family moved to Kuopio and I commuted between Finland, South-East Asia and northern Europe where the company I was working set up subsidiaries and I was responsible for the business development. At the same time I began business studies in the University of Eastern Finland. I felt I need to know more about business management, financing, accounting and economics, legal issues and so on. During all this I was also part time working in a family business for over 15 years, in trade and commerce business.
In 2010 I set up my own company and ever since I have been an entrepreneur. This move wasn’t good for the business studies where I have 150 credits and started the bachelor thesis but that project got derailed and is still on the table. Couple of years ago I was asked to became a partner in a concultancy company and did so.
In the end of last decade I saw an ad about a Master’s program in the field of service business (to be exact, hospitality managemend) at the Savonia UAS. I thought change from technology, engineering and economics field of working would be great and managed to sneak in to the program. Then again I was kind of headhunted when I began working as a concultant in a major tourist attraction spot. And again the work meant ill for studies. I have to say that having multiple businesses on the go is sometimes frustrating. Now I have made time in my calendar to complete the studies in Savonia and I look positively into the future where I might be able to enroll back to UEF to finish what I started there as well.