Ia has a passion for creating distinction. She has almost two decades of experience in branding, business development and design management. In recent years, she has held top management positions in renowned consumer goods companies such as Kekkilä, Hasselfors Garden and Fiskars. Today she is a board member in several B2B and B2C companies.

Throughout her career, Ia has regularly managed to unleash the true potential of brands. She’s mastered a very special way of turning strategy into reality by conducting open-minded exploration and experimentation.

At Kekkilä, Ia was responsible for the company’s brand and marketing through a period of growth in both brand awareness and value, while at the same time spearheading its expansion into new business areas. Her work turned a soil-producer into a player in the lifestyle field.

At Fiskars, Ia played a significant role in transforming a kitchenware company into a fresh player. She led the creation of a new brand look and feel, the redesign of almost 100 SKUs and the development of innovative go-to market concepts, resulting in measurable commercial success.

Ia founded Co-founders in 2016 when she realized that she and her team could help many mid-size companies take their brand and culture management to the next level.

When not helping companies reach their true potential, Ia can be found canoeing around the archipelago or writing poems in her red notebook. There is a page in it for your company, too.

Max Mickelsson has spent the last fourteen years combining his passions for politics, technology and business to promote positive change. In his previous role as a Director for Government Affairs at Microsoft, he helped shape programs that have created bold opportunities for both individuals and for Finland as a whole.

Before his career at Microsoft, he held various positions in politics advising the Minister of Finance, Minister of Labour, Minister of the Interior and the Speaker of the Parliament as well as Secretary General for the Parliamentary Group of the National Coalition party. He has also had positions of trust in many NGOs and is currently the Chairman of Junior Achievement – Nuori Yrittäjyys – in Finland.

Thanks to his career dedicated to understanding and communicating the complex, he believes Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize company culture in ways we’re just beginning to grasp. When not studying the intricacies of corporate life, he’s a keen contemporary art lover who relishes the chance to meet artists worldwide.

Minna is a former journalist, researcher, business developer and a senior advisor in stakeholder relations. Before joining Co-founders she nurtured partnerships in a scale-up energy company. Gathering, analyzing and popularizing information is what makes her tick.

Minna’s education is Doctor of Theology, with main subjects theological ethics and philosophy of religion. In her doctoral thesis she examines the role of life views in environmental conflicts. Insights she gained during research have been tested and processed further in many different business development roles she has since then held in energy sector.

Minna embraces new contexts and subject matters. Recently she has led development of a home automation service and building a software development environment in cloud. In technology development, Minna is especially interested in ethics: environmental and social impacts of new technologies and services that they enable.

Minna is very passionate about her work. It is thus no surprise, that you more often than not can find her reading with her nose in a book during her sparetime. The researcher in her finds balance in life by biking and working out whenever possible.

Ponniah has almost 20 years management consulting experience. He has worked years for a number of industry leading players including Accenture, Ernst & Young and Oliver Wyman.

Ponniah’s experience is diverse and wide ranging. He has worked across a number of European and International markets. His extensive experience of various projects cover a large number of topics including strategy formulation, M&A management, operating model transformation, change management, IT strategy, commercial optimisation, new business start-ups etc.

Ponniah focuses on bringing structure and a methodological approach to challenges that our clients ask us to address. He considers the trusted advisor role that he fills for our clients as a position of genuine privilege.

You are likely to find Ponniah doing sports after work. His true passion is cricket.

We live in a volatile world. We need fresh perspectives to solve the challenges of tomorrow. We need brave thinking. This is why we established a panel consisting of sharp young minds aged 15 to 25.

Our Lion Heart Panel is ready to spar us and our clients whenever more insight is needed.