A new Dynaset CEO was appointed at the beginning of 2023. Anni Karppinen, somebody who has worked at Dynaset since 2008, took over the reins at the beginning of the year. Despite her beginning at Dynaset in 2008, she says that she didn't think she would make her career at the company.
"As a fun fact, I originally started my career at Dynaset by assembling welding generators. Just like Reijo, although I didn't assemble those in my garage. After that, I think the year was 2008 when I started an internship as a sales secretary. This vacancy took me to China, as I had been studying sales in Asian markets. When the internship ended, I continued working in the same position through the summer. I thought, ' I work through summer and then find a real job.' So it wasn't my intention to create a career here. I thought that this was too 'engineering' for me," said Karppinen.
She says that the learning curve was steep as a sales secretary. Many things were learned via trial and error.
"I wasn't in any way technically oriented when I started here. Back then, I visited Timo Nieminen's, our current technical director's, office quite often asking questions about technology," Karppinen said and laughed.
Karppinen said that those she worked with and the customers were what made her stay at Dynaset.
As Karppinen worked at Dynaset, her role constantly evolved. As time passed she became responsible for Dynaset events and also started to fill different sales tasks, including customer visits.
"At this point, things just happened. Event planning, customer visits, and all sorts of team-leading tasks started filling my schedule," she said. "Event planning was natural to me, but acting as a technical salesperson in Finnish expos wasn't a piece of cake for a woman because the industry was male-dominated. Thankfully, foreign expos and customers were a different story that came to the appreciation of my know-how. Gladly things have changed a lot since then in Finland for women as well. Overall, you might say that when I saw something that needed to be done, I did it. After a few years, I became our sales manager. In that position, I worked for nine years, and in 2018, I also became an executive vice president, from which position I left for maternity leave at the beginning of 2022."
She became a sales manager because the sales team proposed her to be their team leader in 2012.
"I applied for the sales manager position at Dynaset before becoming one. The only problem was that the application didn't even lead to an interview," she said.
Karppinen has an MBA in international sales, and is a mother of a one-year-old daughter.
"I was surprised by how much the change in position changed my daily tasks and attitudes toward me – even though most of these recurring tasks had been in my schedule before the new job," she said about her new position. "I'm grateful for how well our team has supported the change and me. The support has been essential to combine motherhood and management positions. In my current position, I get to be involved in many interesting things which cut through all of our operations at Dynaset and all aim to satisfy customers."
Karppinen says that trust and clear goals and vision will help the team grow.
"We have excellent values and a fantastic team and want to be developing in the long run," she said. "Each Dynaset team member is essential and valuable to us, and I provide sparring and support to each team member as much as needed ensuring our journey toward our vision. We must maintain our working culture and team spirit as the company grows. I firmly believe the best workplace is built together."
