Responsible investment and financial management professionals will join the Finnish Climate Fund’s operational team in autumn 2021. Paula Laine, the CEO of the Climate Fund warmly welcomes the new team members to strengthen the Fund’s financial activities, which were launched in spring 2021.
Sanna Ruuskanen LLB, LLM, will join the Finnish Climate Fund as Director, Finance and Administration. She joins the Fund from the Ministry of Transport and Communications, where she was most recently Director of the Finance and development unit. At the Ministry, Ruuskanen was responsible for, among other things, Group finances and associated development tasks and for ownership steering and corporate restructuring of State-owned companies within the Ministry’s administrative branch. Ruuskanen has earlier worked as a legal counsel at the Insurance Centre and at the Finnish Road Administration. “I firmly believe in the purpose and mission of the Climate Fund. It’s great to be involved in meaningful work and in promoting solutions that can combat climate change. My new job will allow me to draw on my earlier experience of administration while examining things from a different perspective and learning something new,” Ruuskanen says.
Peter Platan MSc (Business and Economics), MBA will join the Finnish Climate Fund as Senior Lead, Investments, with particular responsibility for risk management. He joins the Fund from CMI, where he was Director of Finance and Administration. Peter has a strong track record in impact investing and the emerging markets, from among others, Finnfund, CDC and KPMG. ”The Climate Fund’s activities combine for profit investments and positive environmental and social impacts in a challenging way. I believe that this brings an interesting and rewarding element to traditional investment operations where the growth funding requirements of companies can be solved while generating positive social and environmental impact”, Platan explains.
Juha Ollikainen MSc (Tech), MSc (Econ & Bus Admin) has been appointed Senior Lead, Investments, with particular responsibility for impact investing. Ollikainen has been working with climate issues for more than 15 years, including working as an expert in emissions reduction projects for several funds and for Finland’s emission reduction purchase programme under the Kyoto mechanisms. “I consider the Climate Fund to be a very attractive employer because I believe that, through its investments, the Fund has excellent potential to mobilise significant emissions reductions and to act more broadly in showing the way for impact financing aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I believe my experience will benefit the team and I want to contribute to ensuring Climate Fund investments are successful and focus on the most relevant targets,” Ollikainen says.
Sampsa Hämäläinen DSc (Engineering Physics/Applied Physics) has been appointed Manager, Investments at the Finnish Climate Fund. Hämäläinen has a diverse background in research and development as well as in business. He studied energy technologies and received his doctorate in physics at Aalto University. Following his career as a researcher, Hämäläinen has been a strategy consultant at Accenture, where he has spent the past year as part of the sustainability strategy unit. “The Climate Fund particularly attracted my interest by the relevance of its work and the opportunity to make extensive use of my own expertise,” Hämäläinen explains.
Tanja Huohvanainen MSc (Econ & Bus Admin) and Olli-Pekka Mattila MSc (Econ & Bus Admin), LLM have been appointed investment analysts.
Huohvanainen makes the leap to the Investments team at the Finnish Climate Fund from the world of corporate reorganisations. ”I’ve thought a lot about the direction of my career and since the themes of responsibility and impact investing took precedence over the others, I decided to explore them. Then just before the summer, I noticed the Climate Fund’s recruitment announcement and immediately felt that the job had as if been created for me! I can’t wait to see what we can achieve with the bigger team,” Huohvanainen enthuses.
Mattila started his career in law, following which he has worked with financial administration and financing in start-ups. “I’m really enthusiastic about joining the Climate Fund’s activities. It provides a unique opportunity to help Finnish companies to capture international markets while building a sustainable future for following generations,” Mattila says.