AmCham Finland
Amcham Finland is an international membership-based business-to-business network that helps inbound companies access the Finnish market and outbound companies enter the US market. Based in Helsinki, Finland, Amcham Finland also has an office in New York City.
Amcham Finland is an independent, non-governmental, non-partisan and non-profit association. It is fully member-funded; it receives no outside funding except for occasional project-based support.
Membership
Amcham is a community of about 330 companies, headquartered in 20 countries. Members run the gamut from Nordic growth companies, foreign affiliates, to large publicly traded Finnish companies. There are also member companies that don't have operations in Finland and successfully use Amcham Finland as their local base and network.
Activities
Amcham Finland offers its members a networking and policy forum.
The main programs are:
- Global Investors' Program: best-practices and policy-platform for country managers based in Finland
- Launchpad USA: supported market-access program for Nordic companies entering the U.S. market
- Defence Industry Dialogue: public-private industry platform
- Women's Network: leadership-development forum for women with international careers
- Life Science Group: business-development and advocacy forum for pharmaceutical, med-tech and devices companies
Amcham also supports policy and advocacy work, an active legal committee, and other networks such as Executive Assistants and Expatriate Leaders' Network.
History and leadership
Amcham Finland was founded in 2005 by fifty companies and registered as a Finnish business association. In 2010, Amcham and the Finnish-American Chamber of Commerce in Helsinki (FACC) merged. At the time of the merger, Amcham was chaired by Petteri Kilpinen and the FACC by Heikki Malinen and Risto Siilasmaa.
The membership is presented at the Annual General Meeting, which selects a board of directors for two years at a time. Amcham Finland has been chaired by Teppo Rantanen, Managing Partner of Deloitte, from 2005 - 2009, Petteri Kilpinen, CEO of TBWA Finland, from 2009 - 2010, Heikki Malinen, CEO of Pöyry and Posti, from 2010 - 2014, and Tuomo Haukkovaara, General Manager of IBM Finland, since 2014.
The first Managing Director was Natasha Seeley. She led the organization from 2005 - 2007. Kristiina Helenius was appointed Managing Director (later Chief Executive Officer) in 2007. The current Chief Executive Officer is Alexandra Pasternak-Jackson.
The Board of Directors:
Ms. Mervi Airaksinen, CEO, Cisco Systems Finland (Vice Chair)
Ms. Senait Asgede, Senior Client Director, Schroders
Ms. Carmen Ene, CEO, 3StepIT
Mr. Tomi Ere, Partner, August Associates
Mr. Tuomo Haukkovaara, Vice President, IBM Finland (Chair)
Ms. Miriam Holstein, CEO Nordic Region, Bayer
Mr. Jan Ollila, Senior Partner, Dittmar & Indrenius
Mr. Andreas Rosenlew, Managing Partner, Grow
Mr. Juhani Sirén, CEO, Magisso
Mr. Ville Sipiläinen
Partners
Amcham Finland is accredited by the U.S. Chamber and belongs to the world-wide AmCham network.
It collaborates closely with many Amchams as part of the Amchams-in-Europe network with 44 members across Europe and Eurasia.