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.