From tennis coach to CRM chief at Ovi: meet our Finnish enforcement in NYC, Katja Laaksonen

You must have already read our first two People Interviews that we’ve published here at the Ovi Blog on consecutive Mondays (if you haven’t, you can check them here and here). We’ve received great feedback on these posts, thank you for that! Also, as you may have noticed, we have included many of the questions [...]

You must have already read our first two People Interviews that we’ve published here at the Ovi Blog on consecutive Mondays (if you haven’t, you can check them here and here). We’ve received great feedback on these posts, thank you for that! Also, as you may have noticed, we have included many of the questions that you have sent to us in the list of questions! I’ve had a great time doing these interviews (mostly because you, the readers, have responded in such a wonderful way to the posts!) and just last week I had the pleasure to have a chat with our head of Ovi Consumer Relationship Marketing (CRM), Katja Laaksonen, who has lived and traveled all over the world and even worked as a tennis coach before her Nokia career! I mean, seriously! We so have the coolest people working here…

So Katja, how long have you been working at Nokia?

I’ve been working for Nokia for 3 years, starting from the beginning of 2007 when I was working in the Emerging Business Unit in Ruoholahti, Helsinki.

What does your work here at Nokia consist of?

I’m in charge of Consumer Relationship Marketing (CRM) team within the Ovi Experience unit. We are responsible for building Ovi consumer relationship which means both inbound product marketing kind of work and outbound communications with the consumers. The first is related to the service design and working together on the engaging Ovi experience development, and the latter one is about the Ovi CRM program i.e. the communication we send out to our Ovi users. So our main role is to make our active users even more active and engaged with us.

What other project have you been working on at Nokia?

In the very beginning I was working on ventures’ marketing and mostly with WidSets. Later on I was heading the product marketing for all sorts of community kind services we had back then (WidSet, Download, Mosh, Share…), and then I’ve been working in several projects with Ovi, varying from product marketing strategy to Ovi’s proposition in marketing and so on.

Which Nokia office do you work in?

I’ve been located in the White Plains, NY office for the past two years. The place has all these wonderful Finnish elements, such as all-glass exteriors, lots of wood and light… they’ve even planted Finnish birch trees in the back yard! It makes you feel all Scandinavian in the middle of NY.

What did you do before you joined Nokia?

I’ve been working in quite a few start-ups, for example in this company Sulake whose main product is the Habbo Hotel; I lead a global marketing team and took care of launch marketing for several emerging markets back then. Before that I worked at Satama where my main client, incidentally, was Nokia. I worked there when it was Satama’s early days and we were the coolest digital media agency in Finland setting the scene also for Nokia’s digital marketing. And before that I worked in this new-media firm in Holland. All my jobs have been very closely about marketing and communications. I also worked as a tennis coach for 10 years. (ed. note: Holy smoke! I barely get off the sofa! Ever!) I must say there are moments when I miss those days… what beats working with happy and excited people, see their personal development, be in shape yourself and taking this to the Australian coast – getting tanned all at the same time..?

So you’ve lived in quite a few countries by now. You mentioned Holland, Australia… have you been anywhere else?

Yeah, so besides Sydney and Amsterdam, I’ve also lived in Paris and Zaragoza. All of them great places!

Speaking of studying, where did you go to school?

I’ve completed a BBA degree that had parts from my studies in Holland and France. My major was International Business. My MBA is on hold now waiting for a time when I can focus more fully on it.

What do you like about working at Nokia?

I like working for Nokia, because it’s the best possible place to be especially if you have a bit of entrepreneurial spirit in you like I do. Here, you have innovation, creativity and a start-up mentality combined with the support of a big corporation. In a small company you have an altogether different level of support and resources. Nokia absolutely has the perfect combo in that respect. I also love the fact that Nokia is a truly international company and you’re able to work in a diverse environment with like-minded people here.

What makes you passionate about Ovi?

We’ve finally made it to the road where we want and should be on; the road of having all the services you want in one place: your pocket. You can use Maps, stay contact with your friends and family and generally make your life easier with one thing, Ovi. I would absolutely love to see Ovi become a phrase, like “Google it”… like “Ovi it”! Another thing that is very alluring right now is the fact that there are hundreds of millions of Nokia devices out there. Think about the world of possibilities that means for Ovi by Nokia.

What’s your favourite thing you’ve downloaded from Store? Why?

Green Explorer. It’s definitely my favorite. I travel all the time; it clears my conscience quite effectively…

What was your very first Nokia device?

What was that huge, grey one… 2110! Yes, my first phone was 2110. If I remember correctly, the year was 1994.

What devices do you use right now? Also, what are the top 3 things you do with them?

I’m loyal to my E71, I just love that phone! But I explore with my N900 and jog with the 5800. My phone is my alarm clock, calendar, communications tool, renewed iPod, and now it’s becoming my navigator too.

What were you trying to find the last time you used Maps?

Last night I was looking for this one restaurant in Manhattan. Found it!

What are your top three favourite blogs/websites?

My Manhattan favourites, SeamlessWeb and FreshDirect! I don’t think anyone can live without those once you get used to them… Also, as a major shoe collector I love Zappos.com. Livenation.com is a great place to check out upcoming concerts and sporting events…  Just yesterday I was on a gig that I found from LiveNation’s newsletter (30 seconds to Mars, loved it)

As a Finn living in US, do you follow what’s going on in Finland at all?

Oh yeah, at least a couple of times a week I check out HS.fi and Yle.fi to see what’s going on over there. And, of course, I have to check out Iltasanomat.fi and MTV3.fi every now and then to stay up-to-date on Finnish gossip

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Now that summer is on its way, I’ll get my roller skates out and get to rolling! I also play a lot of golf, and during winter I love to go skiing. Tennis, on the other hand, has been on the background for a while now.

What’s your motto?

My motto, “Work to live, not live to work”, is something that I should remind myself about more often…

Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers here at the Ovi Blog?

Go over to Ovi.com, subscribe to the Ovi newsletter and get your Ovi news!

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2010/04/26/from-tennis-coach-t...