Years of experience, a senior position, a clear vision. For many professionals leading digital transformation, the missing piece is not additional technical expertise but the ability to articulate, structure, and drive transformation in organizations where change does not happen on its own.
Many leaders and executives have all come to the same conclusion: technology is rarely the hardest part. The real challenge is getting an organization to truly embrace change and demonstrate the value created.
Aalto EE’s Leading Digital Transformation program is there to find answers. The program provides leaders with both academic frameworks and practical tools for building digital strategy and leading AI transformation.
We sat down with three participants of the program to hear what they think about it so far. Read what KONE’s Senior Product Owner Sasikumar Kumaraswamy, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa’s IT Director Alexander Leppäkoski, and ABB’s Global Sales Manager Marcel Vrijsen have to say about their experiences.
Sasikumar Kumaraswamy, Senior Product Owner, Commercial and Operations - Data Products, KONE
1. What made you apply to the program at this stage of your career?
“After years of leading digital transformations, I have built strong instincts but wanted to pressure-test them against an academic, structured, and outside-in view. At this stage, I'm less interested in simply running transformations and more in understanding why they succeed or stall, which demands a sharper lens than experience alone provides.”
2. What is your background and current role, and what digital challenges do you face?
“I'm a product leader in digital transformation in the global manufacturing industry, translating strategy into implementation across major transformation initiatives. The hard part is rarely the technology but adoption, scaling, and value realization. Getting an organization to genuinely embed digital/AI transformation, sustain it past the pilot, and prove the value is the recurring challenge I work on.”
3. What concrete benefits have you gained from the program so far?
“The program gave me frameworks I now apply directly in my daily work. I'm in a much stronger position to evaluate a business problem with structure rather than gut feel, judging whether it actually calls for agents, ML, automation, or a hybrid approach, and weighing autonomy and operational risk against the value it generates. That discipline has changed how I qualify which initiatives deserve investments.”
“At this stage, I'm less interested in simply running transformations and more in understanding why they succeed or stall, which demands a sharper lens than experience alone provides.”
4. Has any theme, module, or discussion been particularly meaningful to you? Why?
“Leading organizational AI transformation was my highlight. It reframed AI transformation as an organizational change problem, not a technology one, which is exactly where I have seen initiatives quietly fail to scale. That matched what I have seen and heard around from different organizations. The module gave me sharper language for it to be framed and positioned right.”
5. Which theme or module are you especially looking forward to?
“Leading with Impact, the final module. After the strategy and technical frameworks, this is the piece that ties it together on how to carry an organization through change and make transformation stick, rather than just starting. That's the leadership edge I want to sharpen.”
6. How do you plan to leverage what you have learned in your organization or future career?
“To shift from running transformations to shaping how they're strategized, bringing an outside-in and structured perspective on adoption and value realization. In the long term, I want to be a thought leader on AI and digital transformation strategy, not just someone who executes it.”
Alexander Leppäkoski, IT Director, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa
1. What made you apply to the Leading Digital Transformation program at this particular stage of your career?
“Maintaining professional competence is, in my opinion, relevant throughout one’s entire career. The timing was suitable for me, and our company’s own needs aligned well with the content.”
2. What is your background and current role in the workplace, and what kinds of digital challenges do you face in your work?
“I work as an IT Director at Suomalainen Kirjakauppa. I hold a Master of Science degree in computer science. My career has been strongly focused on leading both technology and people. The biggest challenges in the role of an IT Director are rarely related to technology: organizational transformation and leadership are often the most demanding aspects and also the most rewarding!”
"Organizational transformation and leadership are often the most demanding aspects and also the most rewarding!"
3. What concrete benefits have you gained from the program so far? Or what are you hoping to gain?
"I have gained a strong academic foundation to support our company’s technological transformation projects.”
4. Has any theme, module, or discussion in the program been particularly meaningful to you? Why?
“Topics related to leading people and organizations are always fascinating. It has been interesting to hear about other students’ situations and organizations, and to broaden my perspective through that. Exchanging ideas and sparring with fellow students has proven to be valuable.”
5. Which theme or module are you especially looking forward to?
“AI transformation themes are current in all organizations, which makes the topic particularly interesting.”
6.How do you plan to leverage what you have learned in the program in your own organization or in your future career development?
“I will apply the insights gained from the course to support project execution and organizational leadership.”
Marcel Vrijsen, Global Sales Manager, Digital Service, ABB
1. What made you apply to the Leading AI & Digital Transformation program at this particular stage of your career?
"This is exactly the right moment. I am at a point in my career where I have enough domain expertise in maritime technology and a clear view of where AI is taking the industry. I wanted to match that vision with the strategic leadership skills to actually drive it. The Aalto program is a deliberate acceleration of choice towards the future."
2. What is your background and current role in the workplace, and what kinds of digital challenges do you face in your work?
"I lead Digital Services sales from ABB Marine & Ports globally, working within the dynamic industry where century-old shipping traditions meet artificial intelligence. The challenge I love most is unlocking that transformation for our clients, helping ship owners and operators see that digital intelligence in collaboration with ABB is their competitive advantage. My work is about making that shift a reality and scale. Challenges within this area are based upon safety-critical culture, building organizational readiness and trust within the sectors where a wrong decision has real consequences at sea.
3. What concrete benefits have you gained from the program so far? Or what are you hoping to gain?
"The program gave me a structured language for what I already intuited. I can now walk into a boardroom conversation about digital strategy and anchor it in frameworks rather than conviction alone. That shift made me change from a passionate advocate to a credible strategist, using frameworks that give structure to transformation journeys. I look forward to learning more ways to support my business with the different business models presented within this program. "
"The human side of digital transformation is important."
4. Has any theme, module, or discussion in the program been particularly meaningful to you? Why?
"The human side of digital transformation is important. It confirmed something I believe deeply: technology adoption fails at the process and culture layer, rarely at the technology layer itself. That insight is now central to how I position ABB's service offering. "
5. Which theme or module are you especially looking forward to?
"I am really looking forward to Digital Strategy, AI, and Data-Driven Business. This module is specifically looking at the value creation, business model transformation and how challenges differ per industry."
6. How do you plan to leverage what you have learned in the program in your own organization or in your future career development?
"I am actively building towards positioning ABB Marine & Ports, Digital Service as the definitive intelligence layer across all the vessel onboard solutions, from design to decommission. The Aalto program is helping me structure that argument at an executive level with the strategic depth and cross-industry perspectives that make it tangible. Beyond ABB, I see myself contributing to industrywide thinking on AI adoption in critical safety environments. This is just the beginning! "
