Meet our new Board member, Sari Pohjo­nen

Sep 1, 2021 | General US, News US

On June 1, 2021, Sari Pohjo­nen,MSc (Econ), was appointed as a member of the Board of Oilon Group. Pohjo­nen is an expe­ri­enced manager and finan­cial expert, who cur­rently serves as a Member of the Board for both VR Group and Jane and Aatos Erkko Foun­da­tion. Her latest man­age­r­ial posi­tion was for the Fiskars group, where she served as the Group CFO until August 2021. Pohjo­nen has held key posi­tions in various major com­pa­nies, such as Sanoma Group and Reima.

“Oilon oper­ates right in the middle of the energy rev­o­lu­tion, which pro­vides incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties. This both puts Oilon in a slightly pecu­liar posi­tion and presents a very pos­i­tive chal­lenge: we need to pick and choose very care­fully to grab the best oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Pohjo­nen says.

Pohjo­nen has had an exten­sive career in inter­na­tional com­pa­nies. Accord­ing to Pohjo­nen, she was quite sur­prised by the number of coun­tries in which Oilon oper­ates.

First and fore­most, Pohjo­nen will rein­force the Board with her finan­cial exper­tise. “The company’s oper­a­tional man­age­ment must have the best pos­si­ble infor­ma­tion avail­able. It is the Board’s duty to remind the man­age­ment of long-​term plan­ning amidst their busy sched­ule. We must always aim for the con­tin­u­ous improve­ment of our busi­ness.”

Accord­ing to Pohjo­nen, she can hardly wait to get to meet new people within the Oilon orga­ni­za­tion. She has already visited Oilon’s home town of Lahti in South­ern Finland; however, due to the Covid-19 pan­demic, she could meet up with only a few people.

Cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­ity is very impor­tant to Pohjo­nen. “Oilon takes cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­ity very seri­ously. This is great, because this way, cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­ity isn’t some­thing that you simply stick on to look better. But Oilon could stand to better show the world how we address these matters.”

How does Pohjo­nen feel about joining a family company?

“Both Fiskars and Sanoma had a strong family own­er­ship, which means that I’m quite famil­iar with this view­point. Oper­at­ing as a family company is absolutely a strength,” Pohjo­nen says. Pohjo­nen bal­ances out her per­sonal and work life with outdoor activ­i­ties, such as running and skiing. As an archi­tec­ture lover, she is espe­cially fond of Helsinki’s func­tion­al­ist build­ings from the 30s, many of which she can visit in her own neigh­bor­hood.