20 August, Finland. The Board of Management of Patria will be strengthened by a new position of Chief Business Development Officer to support the implementation of the strategy, and two new business unit Presidents; for Land and for Systems business units, have also been nominated. Teemu Raitis, 41, has been appointed as President of Land business unit and a member of the Board of Management. He will start at the beginning of January 2019 at the latest. He has an extensive experience in multinational business as well as in product line marketing, service management and managing international sales. Prior to this appointment, Raitis was the CEO of Epec Oy, a subsidiary of Ponsse. He has also worked as Managing Director of Ponsse’s unit in Brazil and in various positions in Sandvik in Finland, Australia and in Chile. He holds Masters degrees in both in Economics and in Electrical Engineering.
Pasi Niinikoski, 57, currently President of Systems business unit, has been appointed as group level Chief Business Development Officer. He has a wide and long experience in business responsibility in Patria, which supports his new position to drive the development and implementation of the strategy. Niinikoski will start in this position at the beginning of November 2018.
Jonas Geust, 48, has been appointed as the new President of Systems business unit. He will start in this position at the latest in the beginning of November 2018. He has strong experience in business unit responsibilities in technology industry in various companies and in several countries. Geust has been employed by Nokia for over 15 years in various management positions. He has been responsible for Nokia’s N-Series product portfolio globally. Earlier he has also had various leadership positions within Nokia’s sourcing, logistics and quality functions. He also has experience in running startup companies in the field of technology. Prior to this appointment, Jonas Geust was the CEO of Rightware, where he has been leading the turnaround of the company into an industry leader in the connected car industry. He holds Bachelor of Engineering degree and a degree in Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen.
All three will report in their positions to Olli Isotalo, President and CEO of Patria Group.
“It is great to get new people in the Board of Management of Patria to develop our business further and to create an even more international group. These appointments combined with the other Management Team members’ knowledge and know-how, is a strong basis to continue developing Patria even further”, says Isotalo.
