NEWSLET TER 1/19 FROM HANKEN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
Creativity driving innovation In the spring of 1909 the statutes for the school that later became Hanken School of Economics were approved, and on the first of September that same year the new institution welcomed its first students. This year Hanken celebrates 110 eventful years. This year’s theme is creativity - we want to inspire our students, faculty and staff to challenge and rethink our way of working and learning. We believe that the way forward is to encourage both innovation as well as creativity in the learning process. One source of inspiration and certainly a highlight this year is the art exhibition Nordic Contemporary Art Collection. The NoCo-collection is exciting and innovative artwork by both established and internationally well-known artists, but also by young, developing talents. This is followed by a fall exhibition in Vaasa in
cooperation with the Pro Artibus foundation. Over a century of educating experts in economic sciences provides a perspective on learning. The idea of lifelong learning, or continuous learning as it is called in Finland, is not new and has been part of our daily work for a long time. However, the extent to which universities should focus on this has changed. The “open loop university” concept offers interesting ideas on how to start shifting away from the focus on students receiving a front-loaded education at the beginning of adulthood, to receiving a lifetime of learning opportunities. Continuous learning will be an essential part of what we at Hanken will be focusing on during the next hundred years. We believe that creativity and innovation will also be central to carrying out this task. K AREN SPENS REC TOR
FOREIGN TALENT FOR FINNISH COMPANIES International student concerns about finding a job are shared by many foreigners living in Finland. Language and cultural barriers can be difficult to overcome, and foreigners may lack the informal connections and job-market exposure that can lead to employment. Hanken is tackling this challenge head-on with HIT, an initiative running since 2017. Guided by a personal mentor at participating companies, students experience professional development and personal growth parallel to their studies, while the companies benefit from the students’ skillsets and international perspective. HIT is now well established at Fazer, KPMG, PWC, Stora Enso, Wärtsilä and several other companies. Duyen Huynh from Vietnam came to Finland in 2015 to complete a degree in Quantitative Finance at Hanken. Through the HIT initiative, Huynh found an on-the-job mentor at KPMG Finland, which eventually led to a traineeship role with the company. Today, she uses her coding skills to help KPMG increase its automation and machine-learning initiatives, developing new technologies that both improve internal processes and can be sold on to customers. Sonja Manninen, Head of Talent Acquisition at KPMG Finland, sees HIT as one of the ways to bring in expertise the company hasn’t been able to find in the Finnish workforce. “We decided to get involved because today’s business environment requires a versatile talent base,” she says.
Duyen Huyn and Sonja Manninen.
P H O T O : PAT R I K L I N D S T R Ö M