Career Outlooks: My 40 Years in Working Life
My career story began 53 years ago, when I in 1971 started studying at the Helsinki School of Economics, which is currently part of Aalto University. I was then at the age of 18 and one of the youngest students among a couple of hundred new students. My main subjects were accounting and information technology, complemented by business and tax law as well as statistics. I passed the B.Sc. degree examination in three years and it was my plan to continue my studies also for the M.Sc. degree.
As I was then 21 years old only, I decided, however, to apply successfully for law studies at the University of Helsinki. Thus, after the compulsory military service of 11 months, I started also to study law. At the same time, I also started the whole day work as a turnover tax inspector. The progress in my studies was, however, quite slow and therefore, I returned as a whole day student for one and a half year and passed my LL.M. degree examination in 1980. Unfortunately, my M.Sc. studies in economics were never fully finalised, which has sometimes annoyed me a little.
My second full-time job was in Kesko, the then largest wholesaler in Finland, where I started as a tax and legal advisor. However, this employment relationship lasted a bit more than one year only as I preferred industry to the wholesale. My next employer was Imatran Voima Oy, an energy company which is now known as Fortum Plc and is also listed in the Helsinki Stock Exchange. As the energy business was mainly local, I thought it would be interesting to work in an international corporation. Accordingly, after more than five years in Imatran Voima I changed my job to Unisys, a Finnish subsidiary of multinational Unisys Corporation, which was at that time the second largest IT company after IBM. My job title at Unisys was Contract and Pricing Manager.
As I have been always curious about and interested in new challenges, next step after two and a half years at Unisys was to join a law firm called Procopé & Hornborg. It was at that time one of the largest law firms in Finland, having the main office in Helsinki and four branch offices. One of these branch offices was based in Kuopio, a city located in the Eastern Finland in which part of the country I was born and grown up. Thus, I moved with my wife and two children to Kuopio. The life is, however, sometimes full of surprises and owing to some changes, I was offered a resident partner position at Procopé & Hornborg’s branch office in London, UK. We moved to London for three years, which were – as I still think – very memorable. It was very interesting to assist Finnish companies entering into the UK market and international companies doing business in Finland during the three years which I spent in London before returning back to Helsinki.
After more than eight years as a counsel and partner in a law firm I thought it is time to return as an in-house counsel. My next step was to join Patria, a state-majority owned defence and technology company. My role was that of General Counsel and Senior Vice President. My employment at Patria became the longest in my 40 years career, lasting more than 15 years. It was interesting to be involved in many international projects in various countries such as Egypt, Poland, Czech Republic, Portugal, South Africa and the US. Unfortunately, I faced also adversities I did not expect, when some Patria’s employees were prosecuted for bribery in Egypt, Slovenia and Croatia. Accordingly, I had to organise the legal assistance for the suspected and accused persons. Fortunately, all bribery charges were finally dismissed after several years of court proceedings.
I left Patria in 2012, when I was almost 60 years old and thus close to retirement age. Before I retired in 2017, I worked still for three organisations, the last being SOK. It was then and is still the market leader in Finnish grocery trade as Kesko and K Group was in 1980-1981, when I worked there. Therefore, I have sometimes been joking that my career after L.LM. graduation started and ended at the service of the market leader, which were, however, different companies. The circle was thus closed.
As a whole I feel that my 40 years career was interesting and offered me a lot of various experiences and workmates. I think it was a better choice to change jobs every now and then than to remain in the same job or company for decades. Moreover, both degrees have been useful in my career.
Writer profile:
- Name: Olli Happonen
- Job Title: Retired
- Role in Helsingin Ekonomit: Board member of Helsingin Ekonomit
- Studies: B.Sc. (Econ.), Helsinki School of Economics (currently part of Aalto University), L.LM. (trained on the bench), University of Helsinki
- Interests: Recreational sports, especially downhill skiing, monitoring of economy and politics, culture in its various forms
