Risto Siilasmaa Email & Phone Number

I founded F-Secure in 1988 and continued to run the company as CEO until November 2006. After we split the company in two, I chair the b2b side i.e. WithSecure and am a board member of the b2c side i.e. F-Secure. I continue to be the largest shareholder of both.I served as chairman of Elisa Corporation between 2008-2012. I had to step down from the Elisa board when I was appointed chairman of Nokia in mid-2012. Nokia was in a very difficult situation at that time and I and the board had to make significant changes to ensure Nokia's survival. I led a negotiation process that resulted in a deal to sell the Nokia handset business to Microsoft. During that process we also acquired the half of NSN that we did not already own from Siemens.When we announced the Microsoft deal, I took the Interim CEO role and led the company until the closing of the deal eight months later. During that period we created a new vision for Nokia, built a strategic plan, designed a new organizational model, appointed a new management team and a new CEO.During that period we also started a dialogue with Alcatel-Lucent that culminated in a decision to acquire all of Alcatel-Lucent. The deal was announced in April 2015. As a result of the first two deals, and the new strategy, Nokia's enterprise value increased roughly 15 fold from a low of 1,5B to over 20B during the first two years of my tenure.I am currently focused on promoting entrepreneurship, investing in young high growth companies, supporting the CEOs of my portfolio companies and working on various international projects.I invest via First Fellow, my family office. We have a little over 50 portfolio companies, five of which have reached unicorn status. We aim to maintain a 10% hit rate in terms of unicorns while predominantly investing at the preseed stage. I love working side by side with founders and aim to make them happy and successful. We like to think of ourselves as the “first and last investor”. We invest early but are not exit focused. We have, in some cases, remained a major shareholder for 20+ years, and been disappointed when the company was acquired. We would have preferred to see the company grow a little bit further on its own. I am actively involved with Aalto University in multiple roles related to fund raising, entrepreneurship and science. I also serve IESE on their advisory board. I am an active nature photographer, sports enthusiast and student.

Listed skills include Start Ups, Business Strategy, Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and 20 others.