Career Outlooks
To tell my career story, I have first to say a few words about my background. I spent my childhood and youth travelling between Vaasa and Istanbul, as my mother re-married with a Turkish jazz musician when I was seven-year-old. My background and spending time in these two different cities made me curious to understand how different nations and cultures work and why. My high school in Vaasa had with the University of Vaasa an experiment where we were given a chance to partake University course on political geography. I was one of the few high school students to pass the course and as I did so with the highest grade, it made me feel that I found something I was good at and decided to continue my studies at the University of Vaasa focusing on International Public Administration. During my studies I took also an interest in business courses and decided to start another degree in Business Studies with International Marketing as my major. I took minors in French, Applied Ethics, International Administration and Intercultural communications. I was also lucky to go to exchange to the prestigious Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) where also two latest presidents of France, Macron and Hollande have studied.
While I was a fresh business student I started to work in Nordea’s sales team. My career path in Nordea spanned eight years during which I took two breaks to work first in Montreal, Canada and then in Melbourne, Australia. In 2010 me and my boyfriend both finished our degrees and packed our backpacks with visas to Australia. I worked in Melbourne at Australia New Zealand Banking Group and my boyfriend, whom with I have now two children and home in old wooden house in Helsinki, worked in a city planning organization as an architect.
As I was nearing end of my 20s I realized I wanted to change the course of my career towards something that would able me to have more social impact and also use the skills acquired from both social sciences and business studies. To achieve this goal, I participated in British Council and EU program called Empowering European Citizens and through it I created a project that supported immigrants who didn’t speak Finnish nor Swedish to set up their own enterprises. Back then English-speaking entrepreneur services weren’t provided, but I am happy that this has changed. In 2012 I was offered a position as a project manager to build and lead a network of 50 organizations to support Finnish youth to improve their financial literacy skills. I also joined the board of Finnish National Youth Council Allianssi in 2013.
After leading a financial literacy project, I took another career leap into fundraising and development aid work and started to work in international development organizations to secure fundings for programs supporting women and girls’ rights in developing countries. In 2017 I started to lead UN Women Finland’s fundraising and started my first deep dive into United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and how Agenda 2030 was guiding businesses, states and thirds sector to work together to build a sustainable future.
Since 2013 I had also been active in The Helsinki Association of Business Graduates committee for members working in the Third Sector. In 2020’s I wanted to develop my knowledge on Sustainability and started to take some extra Hanken courses on the subject and got curious if a whole new committee of its own around the subject could be created in The Helsinki Association of Business Graduates. In Autumn 2021 I set up together with Riikka Leppänen (who was then working at SITRA) and Helena Kekki (who was the working at FIBS) the Sustainability committee of Helsinki Business Graduates with the purpose of supporting the Business Graduates who work in Sustainability or are curious on the subject to build up their knowledge and network with each other. We expanded the committee to nine members at the end of 2021, and I’ve been the chair of it for three years now. It has been exciting to collaborate and organize events with other Business Graduates that work with Sustainability.
In Autumn 2022 I was invited by a headhunter to join a recruitment process where SOS Children’s Villages Finland was searching for a Director of Fundraising. I was chosen for the position and started in January 2023 leading SOS Children’s Villages corporate and private fundraising. SOS Children Villages has renewed a lot as an NGO and does important work in Finland and globally in over 130 countries. I’m grateful that I’ve been given room to develop my new organization to make sure that SOS Children’s Villages Finland can promote sustainability with our corporate partners, have marketing based on consumer understanding and have efficient and sustainable procedures so we can help more children and families in Finland and abroad.
Now when I’m looking back, I feel that my career has been an adventure, that’s taken me where I wanted, and it makes me deeply grateful. I realize that I’m now in the middle of my career path and remain curious where it will lead me. If I could give some advice to my younger self I’d say, follow your passion, things will fall in their place at their own time, and you’ll always go further together with others.
Writer profile:
- Name: Pinja Hirvilammi
- Current position: Director of Fundraising, SOS Children’s Villages Finland
- Degree: Master of Sciences in Economics and Business Administration, The University of Vaasa
- Interests: Sustainability, Marketing and Good Leadership
- Hobbies: Swimming, Dance, French, Music, Movies, Reading and listening to News Podcasts
