Brand Business Booster for Creative Industries
Expand Your Creative Vision and Unlock Your Potential for the Global Market
Finland needs new, strong export industries. Finland is full of excellent products, but their true breakthrough in international markets isn’t just about quality – it’s about understanding your customers and mastering the skills of global market entry and commercialization.
Brand Business Booster for Creative Industries is a comprehensive hands-on program that brings together the management and experts of Finnish fashion, design, and lifestyle consumer brands to develop customer insight, commercialization strategies, and multichannel strategies for international markets.
The program has been crafted in collaboration with the Finnish Textile and Fashion and a powerhouse steering group featuring leaders from iconic brands and industry leaders like Marimekko and Fiskars. The training days offer a unique opportunity to dive into cutting-edge knowledge, learn from top international experts, gain valuable real-world insights, and network with fellow creatives who are pushing Finnish design to the global markets.
Don't miss out – join us and take your brand to the next level on the global stage!
Why join?
- Gain Insights from Global Experts & Leading Finnish Brands – Learn from the best in the industry.
- Practical, Actionable Tools – Apply what you learn directly to your business for immediate impact.
- Accelerate Your Global Growth – Strengthen your strategy and take your brand to the international stage.
In Collaboration With
Program Steering Group
Elina Björklund, Board chair, Reima Group
Rita Holmberg, CEO, Nanso Group
Liisa Häkli, entrepreuneur, Ommellinen
Petteri Masalin, Chief Design Officer, Fiskars
Sanna-Kaisa Niikko, Chief Marketing Officer, Marimekko
Marja-Liisa Permikangas, CEO, Finnish Textile and Fashion
Sanna Suvanto-Harsaae, Board Chair
Consumer and Customer Insight
How can our company best understand the consumer and retailer needs in international markets? How do we leverage this understanding to create an offering with the potential to succeed?
Brand Positioning, Concept Development, and Commercialization Strategies
Why are positioning, concept development, and marketing key drivers of success in creative industries? What can we learn from the leading Nordic brands and their success stories? What go-to-market strategies work in international markets? How do we capture the attention of international distributors, and where should we focus our sales efforts?
Digitalization and Multichannel Strategies
What role does multichannel strategy play in the growth of design-driven consumer businesses? How can we enhance our company’s visibility in international markets through distribution channel strategies? Which digital tools and platforms are most effective in global competition?
For
This program is designed for Finnish companies operating in the design-driven consumer business sector, with the potential and readiness for international growth. The program’s target audience includes business leaders and experts from firms of all sizes, with a focus on those who are considering or actively pursuing strategic international expansion.
We welcome participants from various roles but hope that you are ready to share insights and engage in deeper discussions about scaling and global market strategies. The participant plays a key role in defining and implementing their organization's strategy. Participants can for example include entrepreneurs, CEOs, marketing or export managers, and business directors. If you are already thinking strategically about how to expand internationally and take your brand to the next level, this program is for you.
Learning Outcomes
The goal of the training is to ensure that Finnish companies operating in the consumer business are equipped and prepared to successfully enter international markets. To achieve this, the training develops the skills of participants, particularly in the areas of digital business, consumer and customer insight, concept development, and commercialization. One of the core objectives of the training is to equip participants with practical tools they can directly apply to their day-to-day work.
- The program’s strengths lie in its broad, research-based approach, which is effectively combined with practical tools and real-world case examples to create immediate impact for the participants.
- Upon completion of the program, the participants will:
- Understand the importance and the role of data and digital business tools in the context of exporting and entering international markets.
- Be able to build a customer insight process within their own company and recognize the importance of consumer insight in international brand building and product assortment planning.
- Possess the practical skills needed for global product and service commercialization, which include skills such as concept development, pricing and distribution channel strategies, distribution-based planning for selection, as well as strategies for effective marketing
Contents and Schedule
The program includes:
- Live-online kick-off and closing sessions
- Three whole day live workshops at Otaniemi with a study group
- Optional evening activities and company visits to program partners’ facilities
Schedule
Optional Evening Program
The optional evening program will include the following activities, with more to be confirmed. You can see the whole agenda for each date under "Schedule". Please note that the program is still being finalized and may be subject to updates or changes.
September 10, 2025 at 17.00-21.00
The Legal Side of Branding Afterwork with Roschier
November 5, 2025 at 17.30-19.30
Evening program: Logistics Solutions for an Internationalizing Company Afterwork with DSV
Instructors
Sanna-Katriina Asikainen
Professor Sanna-Katriina Asikainen is an Associate Professor in Marketing at Aalto University, School of Business.
In 2002-2020 she worked as Professor of International Marketing at School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. In the past, she has worked as a visiting scholar at Scancor, Stanford University, US, and as a visiting professor at Loughborough University, School of Business and Economics, UK.
Professor Asikainen has received many awards and honors for her research: Her article “Measuring inter-organizational trust-a critical review of the empirical research in 1990-2003” was nominated as the Top 25 Hottest Articles in Industrial Marketing Management. Her teaching has been awarded the 'Teaching achievement' of the year 2013, by the Finnish Association of Business School Graduates (SEFE).
Sanna-Katriina Asikainen holds a Doctor of Science Technology from Lappeenranta University of Technology.
Juho-Petteri Huhtala
Juho-Petteri Huhtala (D.Sc. (Econ.) works as a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Marketing, Aalto University School of Business.
Huhtala is an expert in business models, business design, and product and service development. His research focuses on developing artificial intelligence technologies at the interfaces of marketing and sales and both managing and measuring customer experience.
Over the past ten years, Huhtala has been involved in several large-scale research projects, e.g., the B2BAI project, which aims at B2B technological artificial breakthroughs. Previously, he has studied the evolution of business models in mature industries (especially media and telecommunications), among other things.
Huhtala is currently an academic leader in the interdisciplinary B2BAI research project. In addition to academic research, Huhtala has been the CEO of NIBS think tank (https://www.nibs.fi/) since 2018. Huhtala trains and coaches managers and experts in several of Aalto EE's open and company-tailored programs. Topics include but are not limited to, business design, service design tools, business models, and productization.
In the autumn of 2017, Huhtala defended his doctoral dissertation at the Department of Marketing at Aalto University. The research topic was "Essays on Innovation Management and Organizational Effectiveness."
Ana Kristiansson
Ana Kristiansson is an experienced leader in the apparel industry with over 25 years of expertise. She is the founder of PORTIA, a tech company providing AI-powered solutions for SME fashion brands to streamline operations and embrace circularity.
Kristiansson also leads Desinder, a creative agency specializing in sustainable fashion that offers brand strategy and circular design solutions.
With a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design, Kristianssonhas worked with top global brands and earned multiple innovation awards. She is the founder of Apparel Entrepreneurship, an educational platform empowering sustainable apparel businesses, and is a successful author and podcaster.
Known for her dynamic speaking style, Kristiansson inspires audiences with insights on circular business models, branding, AI trends, and entrepreneurship, leaving a lasting impact.
Petteri Masalin
Petteri Masalin is the Chief Design Officer at Fiskars.
Heikki Lempinen
Heikki Lempinen is the CEO at Reima Group
Sanna-Kaisa Niikko
Sanna-Kaisa Niikko is the Chief Marketing Officer at Marimekko.
Sanna Suvanto-Harsaae
Sanna Suvanto-Harsaae is the Chair of the Board
Antti Vassinen
Dr. Antti Vassinen is an expert in strategic marketing and marketing performance management, combining an academic research and teaching background with broad practical domain knowledge and leadership experience.
He specializes in the measurability, impact, and accountability of marketing. This comprises advanced analytics, effective KPI frameworks, data & digital transformation, investment optimization, and the role of creative and media in marketing performance.
With over 20 years of practical experience in data-driven marketing and digital communications, Dr. Vassinen has carried out hundreds of strategy and development client cases in both technology and business roles, supplemented by extensive executive and specialist training experience.
Most recently, he’s served as Director and Head of Marketing Science at Omnicom Media Group (Helsinki), one of the world’s largest media agency networks (NYSE:OMG), and as Data & Media Director at Perfect Fools (Stockholm), an award-winning boutique creative agency. Currently, he is a partner at Zeal Sourcing, a regional consultancy specialized in sourcing external marketing and IT services for enterprise clients. He is a former startup entrepreneur and co-author of a best-selling strategic marketing textbook.
As Professor of Practice at Aalto's Department of Marketing, Dr. Vassinen’s current research topics are (1) the value for consumers and advertisers of privacy in digital services and (2) novel decision tools for managing marketing investment portfolios.
Dr. Vassinen holds a doctorate in marketing from Aalto University School of Business and a master's in industrial engineering and management from Aalto University School of Science.
