“Technopolis is all about people”

In our business units, we have professionals working in customer service, sales, and real estate management roles. We also have specialists working in various group functions, which include marketing, concept development, finance and accounting, real estate development, legal, ICT, and human resources.

In the spirit of our 40th anniversary, we asked a few of our employees about their experiences and memories of working at Technopolis:

Maija Väyrynen and Minna Kemppainen (pictured) work in Oulu, the city where Technopolis was established in 1982.

Minna started working at Technopolis in 1994 – a whopping 28 years ago! She started her Technopolis career in reception and during the years she has had multiple different responsibilities from the development of services to being Head of Oulu Service Team. Today she works as Concept Manager of ICT Services.

“What has kept me here for 28 years? I think the main reason is the versatile and ever-developing duties. During my years at Technopolis, I have had the chance to be part of developing different services and it’s been great to witness that we have been pioneers in many developments, for example, we have offered video conference calls and internet to our customers since the mid-90s,” Minna tells.

Maija began her Technopolis career in 1999 as an office assistant. After that, she has worked as Service Secretary, Personal Assistant, HR Assistant, Sales Assistant, Head of Services, Head of Meeting and Restaurant Services and with office space sales and now she works as Key Account Manager.

“In 2005 I was promoted to sales negotiator, and I got my first ever work cellphone. It was a Nokia Communicator and I was super proud of my own work phone, and I still have it. I think you are able to succeed at Technopolis when you have the right attitude and are ready to take on new things, and of course with the help of great coworkers,” Maija tells.

Not even all at Technopolis know that Minna and Maija are siblings.

“I ended up at Technopolis when during my studies when I was looking for a trainee position. I knew Minna worked here and thought that this might be a nice place, and well that turned out to be very true,” Maija tells.

Both Minna and Maija agree that the most meaningful thing in their years with Technopolis has been the chance to see how the company has developed and how the familiar customers have grown – how small start-ups have grown into successful international corporations at Technopolis premises.

Kari Kokkonen has been working with Technopolis since 2003. At first, he worked as an external consultant and in 2008 he was employed by Technopolis.

He started as Real Estate Manager for Helsinki Metropolitan Area and is now Chief Real Estate Officer and part of the Group Management Team.

“My first memory of Technopolis was in October 2003. My daughter had just been born and I was at home on paternity leave. The first snow had just fallen in Helsinki and my supervisor at that time called me that he had made a project management proposal for Technopolis for the third phase of Technopolis Aviapolis,” Kari remembers back.

Kari has witnessed very closely the growth of Technopolis from Oulu to an international company. The other memory that first popped into his mind is about Technopolis going international.

It was in 2007 when Kari still worked as a consultant for Technopolis, and he was on holiday and having fun on the sledding hill with his children when his phone rang.

“I couldn’t pick up my phone at that moment since we were out in the snow. It turned out that the caller was Pertti Huuskonen, CEO of Technopolis at that time, and he asked about my experience in real estate abroad because Technopolis was thinking about going international,” Kari tells.

“It’s funny how some specific things stick to your mind, and you remember them very detailed,” Kari laughs.

Vytautė Jonaitė was one of the first employees at Technopolis Ozas – she has worked there since Technopolis' operations in Lithuania started.

“When I first came to our office-to-be the Alfa building in 2013, there was nothing, not even doors of rooms inside the office. The first thing I bought was a coffee machine for us and it took two days to get the one I wanted. The other memory that has stuck to my mind is buckwheat for lunch the first few months since there were no café or restaurant operations yet. During my years here I have seen the growth of Technopolis Ozas and the whole company and I’m proud that if there is something new in the market, we are ready to act on it and be the trendsetters,” Vytautė tells.

Vytautė started at Technopolis Ozas in the roles of assistant and administrative assistant. Now she has worked as the Service Manager for more than 8 years.

“I think that Technopolis is all about people. In Vilnius, we have an amazing team! And it’s great that there are so different people working at Technopolis as a group of companies, but still aiming together toward the same goals. That’s what makes working here so good and it’s amazing to be part of that. This is the job of my dreams,” Vytautė concludes.

It’s been about 17 years that Ritva Hartikainen has worked at Technopolis – or 210 months, 900 weeks, or 6300 days as she specified by the time this article was being prepared.

Ritva started with the affiliated company Technopolis Ventures Oy as a project assistant. Over the years her job description and title have changed and evolved. She has worked for example as a Communications Coordinator managing the calendar of the CEO and as a Coordinator for Development Services.

Nowadays Ritva works as Group Controller with a focus on Services, Real Estate and as Business Controller for Luxembourg.

With 17 years of experience at Technopolis, there sure are lots of memories to share, but the first occurrence that came to Ritva’s mind when asking is one that she carries the lesson learned to this day.

“This memory is from the time I was helping Keith Silverang the CEO of Technopolis Ventures at that time. I had booked his flights from Helsinki to Oulu and back, and the trip was meant to be done in one day. The program we used for the bookings always suggested first that the trip would last more than one day, so I had to change the day of the return flight. And so I did. But I didn’t change the year, so the return flight I booked was for the next year. Luckily, I was able to fix this, and he flew back the same day but after this mix-up, I have learned to always check the date multiple times no matter what the task – just to be sure,” Ritva laughs.