History and Philosophy
Kaija
Kaija has over 40 years of experience on successfully founding, growing and coaching companies.
When studying at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT, now Aalto) for her M.Sc. in Operations Research and Decision Theory, she established her first company, Trantex, in 1983, becoming the first female entrepreneur from HUT. Over the years she grew it into one of the leading providers of software localization, translation and documentation services in Europe, with over 250 employees and annual sales of over $15 million. Trantex received the National Finnish Entrepreneur of the Year award in 1996.
In 1997 Kaija and her partners sold the company to L&H Mendez. She moved first to Germany in 1998, and then to Boston in 1999, where she started to help Finnish technology companies to enter the US market. During her stay in the US, she helped over 20 companies to enter the US market and get large US corporations as their customers.
In 2007 she returned to Finland. Since 2008 she has been business angel and board professional, investing mainly in data and analytics companies. She has done coaching and consulting for hundreds startups through several incubator programs in Scandinavia and the Baltics.
Kaija has been an expert evaluator and expert monitor of Horizon2020 SME and FTI applications, and a coach for Horizon2020 and HoSME Phase 1 and Phase 2 companies. She was also a coach for LuxInnovation and in the GO-SME project in 2022-2023. She is currently a business coach for Horizon Europe EIC Accelerator, Mentor in EIC Scaling Club, and has been a pitching coach for over a hundred EIC Accelerator companies through Eura. She has coached companies on growth strategies, business models, competitive advantages, systematic operations, efficient use of digitalization, creating data strategies and new services from data, and utilizing AI/ML.
Juhani
Juhani is an experienced executive in international B2B Service and high-tech companies in Finland, Germany, and USA, where he has had multiple roles in management, international sales and team building, with a proven track record on building profitable growth companies and completing successful turnarounds. He has also long experience in raising both private and public funding on national and EU level.
With a M.Sc. in Material Physics from HUT (now Aalto University), Department of Technical Physics, Juhani has a strong technical background for his work as a Business Coach in the Horizon 2020 & Europe EIC Accelerator program and the EU Blue Ocean program coordinated by PWC Luxembourg, having completed over 30 projects in more than 10 countries. He has done numerous management consulting and business development projects for startups and growth companies, and been a coach in different incubation and acceleration programs, such as BELT for Finnish, Swedish and Lithuanian startups, and New Factory and Red Brick in Tampere.
Juhani started his business career in 1983 as co-founder and later CEO of Trantex until 1997, and continued in language technology as CEO of L&H Germany (1997-1999) and CEO of L&H Language Unit in Boston, USA (1999-2001). After that he consulted several startups on entering the US market in Blue White Venture, Inc. until returning to Finland in 2007 to become the CEO/COO and chairman of nanotech companies Picodeon/Carbodeon, responsible for operations and fundraising. In 2012 he was invited as interim CEO of language services and technology company AAC Global (part of Sanoma Group). After completing a successful turnaround of AAC he was the VP of sales in big data company Ibisense until 2015, and then the CEO of measurement technology startup Innometri until 2022.
After this long career in operative roles he now focuses on startup investments through family office Aldanella, and coaching startups directly and in the EU Horizon Europe program.