Speakers 2019

During his diplomatic career, Aleksei Samosuev has served in various tasks in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, mainly in the area of development policy with Russia, the CIS Countries and Eurasian Integration. Also...

Sun Liwei is the Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Helsinki. He has previously worked in various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade and Ministry of Commerce. His...

Zhanna Sartbayeva is the Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Finland. She has a long career in the Diplomatic service, she has also worked as Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of...

Vidar Karlsson is Senior Manager, Trans-Atlantic and Short Sea, at Eimskip Iceland. Eimskip is a leading transportation company in the North Atlantic with connections to international markets and is specialized in worldwide freight forwarding services,...

Peter Nyman is a well-known journalist and media professional. Earlier this year he went back to host one of Finland’s all-time favourite tv shows, Uutisvuoto (Finland’s version of UK’s Have I Got News For You),...

PhD Olli-Pekka Hilmola is working as a Professor in LUT University, in Kouvola, Finland. He is affiliated with numerous int. journals through editorial boards, including Industrial Management and Data Systems, Decision Support Systems, and Expert...

Hannu Mäkinen is the Director General of Finnish Customs as of 1 May 2019. He has previously held several positions in the Finnish Ministry of Finance, where he most recently worked as Director General of...

Over the years, Rune J Arnøy has worked in banking, business administration, and currently as CEO and Port Director in Narvik, Norway. He has plenty of experience from Board and Trustee Commissions. He was educated...

Jaakko Saha works for Tuoretie Oy as Export Logistic Manager. He has 35 years of experience in logistics management and exports of  food products. His specialities are f.ex. customs clearances, forwarding and temperature-controlled logistics. Tuoretie...

Staffan Herlin has a long experience in shipping business. Since his Master’s (Econ) degree in 1983 he has been faithful to the leading Finnish shipping company, Finnlines Plc and has held several positions within customer...

Before joining BluWrap, Mr. Strand was responsible for building Exxon’s regional center in mid-Norway as an independent company with focus on logistics and sales. He also has worked as District Manager for Scandinavian Airlines Systems...

M.Sc. (Civ.Eng.) and M.Sc. (Econ.& BA) Petteri Portaankorva is working for the City of Kouvola as a development director. He has a wide experience especially in transport and intelligent transport systems both in private and...

Mona Mansour is Senior Adviser European Affairs at North Sweden European Office in Brussels. Mona Mansour is responsible for Internal Market issues including EU-transport policy. She has over 20 years of working experience with EU...

Arja Suominen is the Senior Vice President for Communications and Corporate responsibility at Finnair, and her team is heading Finnair’s responsibility actions, that are increasingly important as consumers and governments alike expect more actions from...

Tero Kosonen, M. Sc, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, VR-Group Ltd, VR Transpoint. He has a long history in expert and management positions in rail logistics. He has been responsible for infrastructure consulting and planning,...

D.Sc. (Tech.) Jarkko Rantala is working at WSP Finland Oy as a business unit manager in Business & Logistics business area. He has a long career in academic research and education at Tampere University of...

Juha Kenraali works in Finnish Transport and Communications Agengy Traficom, responsible for e.g. data issues and market based transport pilots. Previously worked in pharmaceutical industry, Finnish Customs and Ministry of Finance. Master Degree in Statistics.    ...

Antti Pursiainen is the Sales Director, railway logistics Russia and CIS countries at VR Transpoint. Antti has 20 years’ experience of sales management from several business areas in Russia and CIS-countries.      

Martti Husu is the Managing Director of Kouvola Innovation Oy. On top of leading the company, his main operations are stakeholder co-operation and international business. He is strongly involved in the development of the North...

Anu Kujansuu is the Marketing Director of Kouvola Cargo Handling Oy, the company in charge of China block train sales, train loading and documentation in Finland. Kujansuu is responsible for the key account management on...

Marita Toikka is the Mayor of Kouvola since 2017. She has a master’s degree in law and a long experience in Municipal Administration. She has previously worked for the Cities of Imatra and Lappeenranta. Marita...

Nancy Li is the General Director of Scand-China International Link Oy in Finland. She is also Senior Advisor and representative of Kouvola Innovation Oy in the Railgate Finland China Express operation in China.