A Letter From Helene, CEO and Founder of Nordic Listed Leaders

When I joined my first publicly listed company in Finland, I was not yet 40, and my professional network was quite limited. I had a strong desire to connect with and learn from others in similar positions, particularly those leading publicly listed companies. My goal was to enhance my knowledge as a board member, so I started first studying who was in these positions. I was surprised how few were in their 40s or younger.

I also quickly realized that there were very few spaces dedicated to connecting board members and none for publicly listed company leaders. This gap inspired me to think about how we could bring together like-minded professionals—both current leaders and those aspiring to the board positions of publicly listed companies—to learn, grow, and excel.

In 2019, as conversations around diversity gained momentum in Finland, my company initiated a study to examine the diversity on corporate boards. However, we soon recognized another critical piece that was missing: data on the specific skills of board members. Gathering this information proved challenging, but this year 2024, we achieved a breakthrough by leveraging AI. This advancement enabled us to collect and analyze data more effectively, leading to the development of our AI platform, BrainBites, which helps companies find the right executives—the right brains.

By combining the diversity data we had collected with publicly available data from these companies, we built a comprehensive and insightful database. This database became the cornerstone of our efforts and marked the beginning of something much larger.

In the early 2024, we made a pivotal decision: to establish a community dedicated to leaders of publicly listed companies in the Nordics and to create a gala on December 12, 2024 in Helsinki, where we could celebrate these leaders and their companies. To test the idea of Nordic Listed Leaders, we reached out to several respected board members and CEOs from publicly listed companies in Finland. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and we quickly secured our first members. Following this success, we approached potential partners and were thrilled to have Talouselämä join us immediately as our first partner, and later some others you can see on our front-page.

Today, Nordic Listed Leaders stands as a unique community where leaders from publicly listed companies can connect, share knowledge, and grow together. We’re just getting started, and I am incredibly excited about the journey ahead.

Our community operates in English to be inclusive and to welcome foreign talent into our network. While we are committed to inclusivity, at this time, membership is reserved for those who have served as a board member or management team member of a publicly listed company in the Nordics within the past five years. We also accept executives such as Country CEOs of companies listed in other countries than Finland.

Thank you for your support and for being a part of this community.

Warm regards,

Helene

CEO and Founder of Nordic Listed Leaders

Future Board Member of the Year 2022