Hundreds of Finns are working abroad in top executive positions

Headhunters say Finns have no cultural baggage, they are reliable, skilled in languages, and do not exaggerate their talents

Pirjo Väliaho

print this

By Anna Karismo
     
      One of the top Finnish executives who has ended up in a foreign country is Pirjo Väliaho, a Vice President at the international consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble.
     
When she was 16 years old, Pirjo Väliaho decided to leave her home in Muhos in North Ostrobothnia in order to work abroad for the summer.
      However, she could not get away as her parents disapproved of her plan.
      ”In the 1970s it was not customary to travel. I was regarded as too young, even though my father had a job as an electrician that involved a lot of travelling”, Väliaho notes.
      That summer she ended up thinning out sugar beets and picking peas in the municipality of Sauvo in Western Finland.
     
Foreign countries had to wait for Pirjo Väliaho for another 15 years.
      In 1978 Väliaho graduated from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration and started her career at an advertising agency in Helsinki.
      After having worked for the German consumer electronics company Braun in Helsinki since 1982, her employer was so convinced of her sales and marketing skills that in 1985 she was offered a position as a manager in the company’s headquarters near Frankfurt.
     
Until today, Väliaho’s international career has continued for 25 years, rather than for just one summer.
      In the course of those years, Väliaho has become a top executive at Procter & Gamble, a company that is almost twice as large as Nokia, manufacturing a number of household-name international brands, including Pampers diapers, Fairy detergents, and Duracell batteries.
      Since 2007, Väliaho has been responsible as VP for Central Europe, including Germany. Switzerland, and Austria.
      Väliaho says that she was immediately thrilled about the opportunities that were available abroad. Her duties as the head of the oral hygiene product line covered the entire world, right from the beginning.
      ”I created a marketing strategy and developed the sales and marketing of oral hygiene products, starting from zero. At the outset it was a small business, but we could always have visions”, Väliaho continues.
      One of Braun's hit products turned out to be the electric toothbrush.
     
Like other Finns who have left their home country for a job abroad, Väliaho says that the factors that have encouraged her to find new projects are a need for change and an idea to do ”something else”.
      Most Finns who have ended up in a foreign country do not think that for example income as such is as motivating as getting to know new cultures, at least if we are to believe a survey conducted among Finnish Masters of Economic Sciences living abroad.
      New experiences in foreign countries are more important for leavers than for example a secure workplace.
     
”What you need most is courage” , Väliaho says.
      Every now and then headhunters have tried to approach Väliaho during her career.
      ”If money were the most important issue, I would have seized on the offers. I have been more interested in work-related opportunities and a desire to show off [accomplishments]. I have had no reason to leave, as I have felt appreciated”, Väliaho notes.
      Väliaho has obtained good results, which is why she has been given a more impressive title every two to four years. Procter & Gamble has made higher profits and the company’s sales in Central Europe have also grown year after year.
     
”You have to develop yourself. If you get stuck, you might just as well pack your bags and go home”, Väliaho notes.
      Väliaho has been doing business in seven countries, which has required some adjustment to local circumstances.
      ”The emotional side of business varies from place to place. You can speak and explain yourself hoarse for example in Japan before you realise that nobody is listening to you. At that point it is important to know how to react”, Väliaho argues.
     
A couple of hundred Finns are working abroad in top executive positions.
      They are responsible for significant profit centres in large companies, top researchers, or managing directors in medium-sized or large firms, according to estimates by anonymous headhunters.
      Collected information on Finnish top executives could be found only in headhunters’ ring-files.
      Because the headhunters use the names on their registers to do business, they are not willing to disclose their lists of names.
      A large Japanese company has a Finnish medical VP, a Finn is in charge of the North American operations of an American family enterprise that sells technology - and the same applies to the entire restaurant section of a establishment in St. Petersburg that was recently chosen as the finest luxury hotel in the world.
     
Some Finns who have left are not enthusiastic about returning home, as they want to continue their international career.
      At the same time, there is a large number of those who would like to come home when they get older.
      ”I have had international jobs for more than ten years and now I think I would like to return home”.
      Headhunters say that they are often getting phone calls of this kind.
     
These individuals have progressed in their careers and they may have a family with children, which is why home-coming sounds tempting.
      The problem is that it is difficult to find work for homecomers, however successful they might have been on other shores.
      There is no room for top-level professionals in the labour market of a small country.
      ”In such a case there is no other alternative but to go international”, says a headhunter who is monitoring the managerial labour market at close quarters.
     
Väliaho says that she takes life one day at a time.
      She is also currently sitting on the Board of Directors of Finnish-owned Amer Sports, one of the leading sporting goods companies in the world.
      ”My roots are in Finland, but at the moment, I have no reason to change anything in my life”, Väliaho adds.
     
     
BACKGROUND: ”Finns have skills in a number of subjects”
     
     
As a rule, Finnish young people go first to Germany or to the USA, career consultants from various universities report.
      Even though most of them end up working in Western Europe, an increasing number of young Finns settle in Asia and especially in Russia.
     
The trump card of Finnish citizens is the fact that unlike for example Asians or Italians, Finns are not associated with commonly-held public beliefs and simplified conceptions or stereotypes.
      One of the headhunters says that Finns tend to have wrong-headed ideas about themselves compared with those held by foreigners.
      ”For example, the so-called tankeroenglanti (”poorly pronounced English”) stuff is just nonsense. Finnish executives have excellent English skills. Moreover, they master several languages, including German, Swedish, and sometimes even Russian”, the headhunter claims.
     
Finns also really possess the skills they claim they have acquired.
      "They might not be such good political animals, but they know what they can do and they do it well."
     
Moreover, the Finnish university diplomas are authentic and reliable.
      In comparison, the headhunters who are looking for top-level executives have to verify every single American and British university diploma, as an awful lot of fake certificates are out there in the wild.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.10.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  OECD comparison report: Finns educate themselves longer and longer (9.9.2009)
  Finnish expats stay in orbit (5.1.2010)
  Education - latest Finnish export product (5.1.2010)

See also:
  Finnish know-how helped pump Kazakhstan oil in early 20th century (31.3.2009)
  Study: Isolated Finns have unique genes (17.3.2010)
  Ollila: Services and know-how keys to Finnish economic growth (6.5.2009)

ANNA KARISMO / Helsingin Sanomat
anna.karismo@hs.fi