From great wide open of South Ostrobothnia to the hot deserts and dark jungle.
From great wide open of South Ostrobothnia to the hot deserts and dark jungle.
I have been working as a Business Development Manager at Atexor Oy since 2001. The company manufactures lighting solutions for explosion hazard areas, operating internationally. Between 2013 and 2018, I lived in Germany, helping the company to set up a permanent partner network and customer base in Central Europe. For ten years (2002–2012), I was also a shareholder of Centaurea Oy, the predecessor of Atexor. During that time, the company made its first major leaps in international growth.
My role includes
building and development of distributor and agent networks, business planning (business strategy) responsibility in the management team, and customer relationship management.
My education includes BBA Marketing (Small and Medium-sized Business Management Study Programme, University of Applied Sciences for Entrepreneurs, 2001) and MBA (International Business Management, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, 2021).
So, how did I end up in the desert and jungle?
Sometimes international sales is such that you need to take your passport and your toothbrush and actually travel to the spot. You go and meet the customer organization, and you spend time with the people there until you start understanding their world. You search until you find the right stakeholder, wherever they are, and you show them concretely how your product or service can make their life better. Follow this advice long enough and one day, you may find yourself holding a product demo inside an oil tank in the desert in the middle of the night like I did…
