Ilkka Vertanen Email & Phone Number

Helsinki, Fi

Oslo, No

As the Sales and Marketing Director at LINK Mobility, a European leader in mobile communications, I lead our business in Finland and the Baltics.My responsibilities include leading local new customer acquisition, account management, customer retention, and partner sales. Additionally, I spearhead our Finnish and Baltic marketing initiatives, ensuring that our marketing and sales efforts support us in reaching our revenue and growth targets.My role involves a holistic approach to managing the Finnish business, focusing on strategic growth initiatives to expand our customer base and market share. During 2024, we successfully executed a go-to-market for SMS SenderID Protection and are in the process of achieving the same with RCS.--LINK Mobility is a communications platform as a service (CPaaS) provider that delivers communications products and services to enterprises.LINK helps over 55,000 customers globally to engage in meaningful conversations with their audience across multiple channels. Use cases include mobile communications for notifications, multifactor authentication, marketing, and customer care. Whether you need SMS, WhatsApp, or RCS, we have the ideal platform to scale with your needs.LINK takes pride in providing superior support, account management, and consultation for all customers, regardless of project size.

I founded the GTM Club to share what I learned about increasing sales, leading go-to-market teams, and creating and executing winning sales-led go-to-market strategies. The blog and connected newsletter guide those looking to boost their B2B technology sales.--GTM Club provides strategies and tactics to accelerate your sales-led go-to-market.The vision is to eventually create a place where Go-To-Market Leaders and Doers unite to help each other accelerate sales, scale effectively, and conquer their respective markets.Today, GTM Club provides the following:1) Monthly Newsletter: Expect a regular digest of sales-led GTM insights delivered to your inbox.2) Weekly Blogs: With dozens of topics queued up, new content is published weekly.3) Member Content: Resources crafted to accelerate go-to-market motions.Our content and resources are tailored for those keen on deepening their understanding of go-to-market strategies, tactics to drive sales growth, and practical applications for generating sales pipeline.GTM Club welcomes everyone, from seasoned professionals to newcomers in the GTM field.Join by subscribing to our newsletter.

Happy Hackers helps its customers accelerate their go-to-market by creating sales and marketing strategies, generating sales opportunities, and converting those opportunities to revenue. We serve B2B companies ranging from VC-funded start-ups to companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.As a co-founder, I participated in all day-to-day operations, from hiring new team members to closing the first customers and providing services to them. After the company gained momentum and the team grew, I gradually took a more advisory role supporting our management team. At its peak, Happy Hackers grew to 200k€ annual revenue and had a close to a 10-member team dedicated to our customers.

00500 Helsinki, Fi

As a sales director, I led sales and new customer acquisition for LeadDesk's JennyBot offering. LeadDesk acquired GetJenny in August 2021. Our sales team included up to five people and me. My daily responsibilities included managing and developing our direct and partner sales, ensuring we reached our targets and facilitating dialogue between various teams at GetJenny and LeadDesk as part of go-to-market for JennyBot within LeadDesk's footprint. Our business unit was tasked with reaching close to 2M€ in ARR.In addition to continuing to lead daily sales of the GetJenny Business Unit, I participated in the project integrating GetJenny into LeadDesk. My participation included developing sales team culture, standardising company-wide sales tech stack and ways of working, and supporting the creation of a shared roadmap for product development. --LeadDesk is the fast-growing Finnish company that makes Europe’s #1 telesales software for sales and customer service. The service is used by over 20,000 professionals in 34 countries daily. Our clients include small and large companies that use LeadDesk to make 100,000 deals per week – increasing every week.With GetJenny, LeadDesk can offer customers an even more extensive AI-based product portfolio.

Helsinki, Uusimaa, Fi

As a sales director, I managed GetJenny's sales-led go-to-market, spearheaded our customer acquisition, and scaled our sales organisation. Before LeadDesk acquired GetJenny, its sales team included up to seven people, plus me.In early 2019, we raised 2M€ seed funding to accelerate our expansion across the Nordics and the MENA region. Soon after, TNW selected us to their "5 hottest startups in Finland" list. We worked to improve customer experience and customer service one chatbot at a time!In 2020, GetJenny's revenue was €1.4 million, its operating margin was 19.6%, and the company employed 20 professionals. In August 2021, GetJenny was acquired by LeadDesk.--Introducing JennyBot. Create advanced AI chatbots without developers. All the complicated NLU, intent matching and process automation happen behind a powerful, easy-to-use interface so you can focus on what customers want: answers.Reduce response and resolution times, deflect frequent questions, and give your human front-line support staff time to serve customers who need personal help. While still serving the rest with AI chatbots. JennyBot helps you serve every customer, every time.

Helsinki, Fi

As Director of Retail and E-Commerce, I was based in London and led Giosg.com’s international growth within the retail, property, insurance, and banking industries. It was my duty, together with customer success and support teams, to make sure that our clients boosted their lead generation, increase their conversion rates, and provided superior customer service.In 2017, giosg.com was named as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Finland:The company was 11th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list, with a 735% increase in turnover over the last four years. The growth enabled giosg.com to successfully raised 4,5M€ in that same year.--Giosg.com is all about rewriting the rules of online engagement. We help our clients do better business by engaging more successfully with their online visitors. Using data to identify and AI to engage with visitors, we digitalise sales, transform customer service, and increase conversion rates.

Helsinki, Fi

As a Business Development Manager, I worked to improve giosg.com's market position by identifying new business opportunities, acquiring new clients, and growing existing accounts. My primary role was to introduce Giosg’s solutions to new customers and help them to increase their online sales by increasing conversion rates and/or generating more sales leads. To reach my goals, I worked with our sales and support teams as well as our extensive partner network.

Helsinki, Fi

As an Account Manager, my duties included new customer acquisition (from prospecting potential clients to closing the deal) and managing existing accounts (up-selling and cross-selling). Part of my time was also dedicated to identifying and pursuing opportunities for new partnerships and resellers.

Touché was an online store for fencing equipment. Company's customers were Finnish fencers, fencing clubs and national fencing association. The company started in 2008 out of a need to provide an easier way for Finnish fencers to secure new high-quality fencing equipment. In two years, my online store became the number one destination for Finnish fencers needing new gear. --The life of an entrepreneur instilled in me a customer-first mentality. It taught me the importance of providing a great customer experience while optimising daily activities, managing cash flow, and maintaining growth. I learned to prioritise and make the hard decisions on which opportunities to pursue. After running the company for five years, I closed it down and headed towards bigger challenges with everything I had learned.

K.A.Weiste Oy is both one of the leading and one of the oldest manufacturers of Christmas decorations in Europe. In addition to the manufacture of decorations, K.A.Weiste Oy carries out importation of other Christmas products, along with interior decoration articles and florist products.--After a successful launch of a new B2B e-commerce site in June 2011, I took the lead on managing and growing K.A.Weiste’s online sales. For the first year in operation, the new website performed better than anticipated and, while setting up future growth, I more than doubled the sales for the second year.To increase sales, I focused on three themes: increasing user base, optimising conversion rate, and improving available product information. I acquired new customers through online marketing and ran email marketing campaigns for existing customers to grow the user base. Identifying and removing bottlenecks from order process while increasing amount of available product information (of over 2000 items) set online sales on an upward trajectory. In addition to improving sales, I worked with other departments to adjust their processes in regards to the new channel. I educated B2B sales team on different ways they could utilise new website in their sales work. I helped order management on how to handle orders and enquiries from the online store.

Nordiska Ekonomie Studerandes Union - NESU Finland is a non-profit umbrella organisation of all 13 NESU organisations in Finland. The main missions of NESU Finland are to coordinate the cooperation between Finnish NESU organisations and spread NESU to other Nordic countries. The association is managed by a board of 3-8 members led by a country representative. NESU stands for Nordic Economics Students' Union.Country Representative / Chairman of the Board is a position of trust with no monetary compensation. Chairman of the Board is elected by a vote for one year term.--During my term, I continued building the organisation based on the vision set by the previous board. With my board (6 members) we transformed the role of NESU Finland from passive bystander to active participant and force of change within our student community. The change was made by participating in open dialogue with member associations and individual members, starting and successfully carrying out new initiatives in Finland and abroad, modernising how member organisations collaborate (see project nesu.net), and forming a solid foundation for future boards to build on.

K.A.Weiste Oy is both one of the leading and one of the oldest manufacturers of Christmas decorations in Europe. In addition to the manufacture of decorations, K.A.Weiste Oy carries out importation of other Christmas products, along with interior decoration articles and florist products.--As a sales assistant, I substituted for domestic sales and worked on a project to modernise K.A.Weiste's B2B sales. My role focused on setting up an e-commerce site as a new sales channel.I worked as a project member responsible for all the customer facing aspects of the new online store. To complete my tasks, I needed to work in close collaboration with our platform provider and other partners. The online store launched in June 2011. While working on domestic sales, I participated in all aspects of B2B sales such as attending sales meetings, writing proposals, and processing orders. During my time as a sales assistant, I learned the basics of B2B sales and account management.

Fi

Gigantti is part of Elkjøp group which is the largest consumer electronics retailer in the Nordic countries. In 2011, Gigantti had 40 stores, about 1000 employees, and revenue of nearly 400 million euros.--As a customer servant, my tasks included managing product compensations, accepting faulty devices and processing them for service, and making claims to the manufacturers for defective products (accessories and SDA). I worked as a part-timer during semesters.

Master’S Degree, Marketing

Bachelor'S Degree, Marketing

Exchange Student

Education record

Secondary School Graduate