The story
I have always been drawn to ideas that need to become things – newspapers, software, books, identities. Design has been the constant: started in editorial, branched into brand work, kept going through every role since. It’s not a side gig. It’s how I see the work.
Alongside everything, I’ve run an independent design practice since 2015 – Remagine – and a book publishing venture called Uprising Coalition. Uprising publishes art and music photography books. It’s analogue, slow, and intentionally inefficient.
I started in editorial design. Working the desk at HBL, including the broadsheet-to-tabloid transition. Art direction at Close-Up Magazine before that, and brand identity work alongside. The deadline-driven, type-first discipline of newspaper work shaped how I think about hierarchy and clarity to this day.
Then I spent a decade running the Finnish operation of a Scandinavian B2B software company. Started from zero, built it into the company’s most successful international venture. Customers like Alma Media, KSF Media, Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, and Hämeen Sanomat. Building relationships that led to business and partnerships, sitting on the executive team, shaping product strategy – I learned what it actually takes to ship enterprise software people will pay for and depend on.
When Naviga asked me to come in as Product Owner in 2019, I said yes. It meant moving from running a local business to leading product globally, and I wanted the deeper product work. The title changed; the way I worked didn’t. I’ve kept thinking like an entrepreneur ever since.
At Elisa, I spent three years turning a failing internal design system into the default choice across the company. Now I’m leading two teams on digital identity infrastructure used by millions of consumers, defining what’s essential to ship and prototyping with AI tools to validate ideas before development starts.