Anna-Maija is a finance and business development professional with +20 years’ of experience in identifying innovations and scalable business models in various industries in an international context with execution capability, a can-do-attitude, holistic perspective and passion to build on Nordic strongholds. Currently she works at Nordic Innovation which is part of official Nordic cooperation contributing to making the Nordic region a leading region for sustainable growth, entrepreneurship, innovation and competitiveness. At Nordic Innovation she is responsible for Nordic Scalers program. The vision of the program is to make the Nordics the leading region in the world not only for starting up but also for scaling up businesses. Nordic Scalers program provides 10-weeks hands-on and customized support for up to 10 Nordic scale-ups at a time who want to grow their business even faster. Before joining Nordic Innovation, Anna-Maija worked with the Finnish start-up ecosystem at Tekes (current Business Finland), evaluating the business performance and execution capability of start-ups and coaching them in their business and innovation development. She has also hold has had various international assignments related to innovation policy development and in the field of innovative service businesses

Svein Berg has a wide and long experience from working with innovation and business development both nationally and internationally. He started as Managing Director at Nordic Innovation in April 2017. He came from the position as Director Region Americas at Innovation Norway where he has worked in various positions since 2006.

Berg also has experience from the private sector and has previously served as Director at Norway Seafoods ASA and Managing Director of the Norwegian Seafood Council AS. Berg has also served as Senior Vice President in the Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund. He holds a Master Degree in Economics from the University of Oslo.

Ola Ahlvarsson is a Swedish entrepreneur and athlete based out of Stockholm. Ola has since the mid 90’s been at the cutting edge of digital entrepreneurship as an entrepreneur, investor, thought leader and advisor. He has a deep understanding of how businesses can embrace digital opportunities and technology earning him several international awards and recognitions, such as Wired Magazines top technology thinkers 2015 and Young Global Leader at World Economic Forum.

Speaker and Moderator

Ola is one of Sweden’s most popular international speakers and moderator. Ola has been chosen to host and lead discussions in some of the world’s most prestigious events, amongst them at the World Economic Forum in Davos, DLD in Munich, World Knowledge Forum in Seoul and Le Web in Paris. Ola is also the co-creator, host and moderator of SIME, a thought leader summit held in Stockholm every year hosting 2000 leaders from the Swedish and the International Economy. As a moderator, he has interviewed heads of states, global top executives, pop stars, super-entrepreneurs, hackers, opinionated kids and brilliant academics. As a speaker, Ola has an amazing ability to engage and combine personal experience with the latest trends and learnings and a unique way of combining in-depth domain expertise with excellent stage performance sprinkled with passionate curiosity.

Falk is an experienced M&A and fundraising professional with over twenty years of experience in the software, technology and internet industries. He has a global network in the investor and acquirer community and closed successful deals with companies such as Microsoft, Disney, Blackberry, Balderton, Swisscom and Telefonica.

Falk was the founder and managing partner of Cartagena Capital which merged with Bryan, Garnier & Co. in January 2016. Before that Falk worked for Durlacher (acquired by Lazard), Gartner Group, Logica, McGraw-Hill and Nokia in various management, consulting and investment roles.

He is also a founder and private start-up investor as well as board member of private and public companies in the technology sector.

Adam Kostyál is the Senior Vice President of the Global Listing Services and Head of European Listings for Nasdaq. Besides the Nordic Exchanges, Nasdaq has approximately 200 companies that are either primarily listed or dual listed on Nasdaq in the USA. In addition Nasdaq has launched the Nasdaq Private Market which is an offering focused on supporting private growth companies in managing liquidity events.

Adam has been with Nasdaq for the past 10 years. He started his career at OMX and has been in various commercial roles within the organization. Prior to his current role he had overall responsibility for Nasdaq Market Technology for the European, Central and Eastern European regions. Prior to Nasdaq, Adam held various positions with Enron, Cell Network and Bloomberg. He holds a BSc in Economics and Marketing from Vrije Universiteit de Bruxelles and speaks four languages including English, Swedish, Italian and French. He is also the father of five.

Sean is an American entrepreneur, investor and author originally from California. He has invested in over 120 startups and founded several of his own. Through his work in acclaimed accelerator programs like 500 Startups and the Katapult Impact-tech Accelerator, Sean has helped to mentor 1000s of startups on growth marketing and fundraising. Sean is currently based in Oslo, Norway where he works as the CMO of appear.in, the easiest to use video meeting service.

Tommy Palm, long-time Swedish games industry veteran, is the co-founder, CEO and resident “Guru of visual computing” at Resolution Games, where he works in the forefront to man the helm of the company’s voyage into creating original IP for VR and AR gameplay that will forever change the way mainstream consumers engage in the platforms. Most recently Tommy was the spokesperson and Games Guru of Candy Crush Saga maker King Digital Entertainment, where he helped lead the company to its IPO at a $7B valuation. Prior to that, his company Fabrication Games was acquired by King Digital Entertainment in 2012 to provide the platform ultimately used to help the wildly successful company transition to mobile. Tommy also founded Stugan, Jadestone, The Game Trail and consulted on games development since he first started programming for Commodore 64 in 1986.

She has a strong background in life science sector where she has gained close to 20 years of experience in the global business. Previously she has worked in commercial roles in both large and midsize international life science companies, including Thermo Fisher Scientific, Sartorius and Finnzymes. Since 2014 she has led Aiforia (former Fimmic), a spin-off company from the University of Helsinki. Aiforia® Cloud revolutionizes image-based diagnostics, especially in the field of pathology, by bringing deep learning AI to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the analysis. As a result, experts can improve their decision-making workflow and patients get better, faster and more personalized healthcare. Kaisa holds a M.Sc. degree in biochemistry from the University of Helsinki.

Rene Kromhof is a global business executive with strong technical know how and extensive commercial & leadership experience. Throughout his career he has been successfully working for and with the world’s leading consumer electronics & semiconductor companies. Most notably, over the last decade he has been part of the Heptagon leadership team that resulted in ams AG acquiring Heptagon in 2017: one of Europe’s bigger exits in the tech sector. Based out of Helsinki, Finland, Rene currently holds several board positions, invests in early stage startups and consults international growth companies and VC’s.

Passionately building and scaling international startups. Transforming technology commercialization through startups. Innovating in online international startup education and mentoring.