Mikko Leinonen Email and Phone Number

I am the leader of Deloitte’s Finnish banking consulting practice.

I led a team of highly skilled senior experts dedicated to business, people and technology transformations in the Nordic financial sector. The team offered a full suite of services in this area ranging from project, programme and portfolio management to strategic advisory and change management.

My role was to expand the firm’s business in the Nordic financial sector with main focus on transformation initiatives. I also supported the firm’s business development e.g. by assuming responsibility for our business expansion to Denmark.

Supplier Management was established in September 2020 as a new unit to oversee Nordea’s most strategically important engagements with its external partners. Additionally, the unit was responsible for maintaining and developing all Nordea’s third party guidelines and processes.The unit consists of ~20 experts and leaders located in the Nordics and Poland.

I again decided to move to a completely new territory and joined Nordea’s 1st line of defense risk management area as Head of Third Party Risk Management in February 2019.The unit’s responsibility was to ensure that risks related to Nordea’s partnerships with external vendors are under control and appropriately managed. In addition, major part of the task was to mature Nordea’s capabilities in this area since it was still fairly new as a distinct discipline and also because of its importance given that partnerships are at the core of Nordea’s strategy.The team consists of +15 risk management experts located in the Nordics and Poland.In 2019 we achieved major improvements in this area including introduction of a new, agile team set-up, completely new risk assessment process, improved oversight of Nordea’s most critical suppliers and significant improvements in regulatory compliance.

This was a transition period from my previous role as Head of Group Programme Office to the next one. During this time I supported my successors in the handover process regarding my old responsibilities and also acted as strategic partner to the heads of my home organisation i.e. Group Portfolio Management & Change.

The Group Programme Office was a unit established in September 2017 and built on the Group Simplification unit I was heading. The unit was part of Nordea's new Group Portfolio Management organisation.The purpose of the unit was to ensure execution of Nordea's key development initiatives by providing programme management support in areas such as risk, dependency and financial management, planning, reporting, quality and delivery assurance, programme discipline, training, education and communication.During this time I built the unit from ~10 programme management experts into a Group-wide programme management competence center including ~30 experts and a true center of excellence in programme management. We also introduced multiple artefacts to the use of whole Nordea such as a business change and project/programme management playbooks.

After one year in the Group Simplification unit as an expert I was promoted to the position of Chief of Staff of the unit.In this role my main responsibility was to lead the daily operations of the unit. In addition the role included both internal and external stakeholder management duties and management support activities.For instance I was responsible for ensuring that the programme management office (PMO) functions were operated properly across the Group Simplification Programme and for coordinating all of the Programme's interactions with the financial supervisory authorities (FSAs). In addition, I was a member of the Programme's steering committee.During this time we created a strong foundation for large programme management in Nordea by developing multiple essential programme management disciplines such as risk, dependency and financial management, business change and communication capabilities and quality and delivery assurance.

At the end of 2014 the major regulatory initiatives I had been working with for the past two years started to be finalised and I decided that it was the right time to look for new challenges again. Nordea had just launched the biggest business transformation programme of its history, the Group Simplification Programme, and I wanted to be part of that.I joined the Group Simplification unit that was a central body responsible for overseeing the whole Programme. This was an expert position where I was responsible for monitoring all activities of the Programme, reporting to Nordea's Board and other management support activities to the Head of the Programme. I was also the secretary of the Programme's Operating Steering Committee, a key forum guiding the Programme and its four sub-programmes i.e. the Core Banking Platform, Payment Platform, Group Common Data and Customer & Counterparty Data sub-programmes.In this position I learned a lot about programme, change and stakeholder management. I also really began to appreciate the role of IT in banking.

After six months as the Head of Management Secretariat my manager appointed me as the Head of Public Affairs Finland, a new unit that was established to coordinate and manage Nordea's public affairs activities in Finland. I was responsible for coordinating Nordea's activities in the Finnish banking association (Federation of Finnish Financial Services, FFI), supporting the Head of Retail Banking Finland and Nordea Bank Finland's Country Senior Executive in their roles as chairmen of the FFI's Executive Committee of Banking and the Board of FFI and for conveying Nordea's viewpoints on certain key regulatory initiatives to relevant stakeholders such as the Finnish Ministry of Finance.In this position I learned a lot about stakeholder management and how to influence the opinions of others.

Nordea's Young Significant Talents Programme is a Group-wide leadership programme initiated by Nordea's Group Executive Management. The purpose of the Programme is to identify potential future executives and provide them with management and HR support to reach that potential. I was nominated to the Programme by my manager in Group Legal and selected after a very thorough and demanding selection process. The Programme included seminars and training focused on leadership and mentoring by a Nordea's top executive.

After I was selected to Nordea's Young Significant Talents Programme I was encouraged to move to a new, more challenging position. I moved to Retail Banking and became a leader for five Management Partners and five Management Assistants. I was part of Retail Banking Finland's management team and my team was responsible for providing the Head of Retail Banking Finland and his Deputies with both operational and strategical support. I also worked with several Nordic projects during this time. In addition, I supported Nordea Bank Finland's Country Senior Executive in various tasks with main focus of public affairs activities.In this position I learned about a new element of leadership: leading experts. I also learned what it's like to work in a company's executive management.

After four years in Nordea's Contact Centre, one as Customer Service Agent and three as team leader, I wanted to move on to new challenges. I wanted to use my lawyer's education in practice and hence, moved to Nordea's legal department. First, I was a lawyer in General Banking Law team where I focused on agreement negotiations but also supported Nordea's business units by giving them legal advice. The business units I worked with included Retail Banking's branch network, Cards and Cash Management.After one year I moved to another team in the legal department, Securities & Asset Management Law. I continued to focus mainly on agreement negotiations and giving legal advice to Nordea's business units. Here I mainly worked with Custody, Markets, Savings and Private Banking units.During these three years I expanded my knowledge of Nordea's business to areas such as Cards, Cash Management, Custody, Markets, Savings and Private Banking. I also learned a lot about negotiating.

During this time I was a leader for two teams in the same department. Those were my first leadership positions. First, at the age of 25, I became a leader for a team of 15 Customer Service Agents, the position I previously held myself. I was in that position for only four months because it was a temporary position. During that time the team's performance improved in all relevant areas i.e. availability (time with customers), efficiency (number of customer contacts handled) and sales. I was also responsible for the recruitment of my successor for the position.After that I moved to a new position where I was a leader for a team of 25 Customer Service Agents. I was also the deputy head of our department. Also here the team's performance improved in all areas mentioned above. In addition, the team's satisfaction improved. After one year the team was split in two on my recommendation and I continued as the leader of one them for one year.During these three years I learned a lot about leadership and strengthened my knowledge of Nordea's Retail Banking operations.

After one year in Nordea I was selected to Nordea's Nordic Trainee Programme. At this time only around 10-15 people from hundrets or even thousands of Nordic applicants were selected to the Programme. The Trainee year included five seminars in which Nordea's different business areas were presented to the participants by the top management of these areas, leadership training and job rotation.

After finishing my thesis at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Law I returned to Nordea on permanent basis. During this time I strengthened my knowledge of banking and improved my sales skills.

This was a summer job between May and September 2005 and my first position in Nordea. (I’m adding it to my profile to this particular time period to enable my total tenure in Nordea to be easily visible.)I answered calls from Nordea's private customers and helped them in any of their banking needs (daily banking, borrowing, savings etc.). The position also required strong sales focus. During this time I was among the best sales persons in the whole unit and also learned the basics of banking.