Boss Level Podcast

My guest for this episode is Kaisa Hietala, Executive Vice President of Renewable Products at Neste. Neste currently makes half of its profits from renewable products and the shift towards this state has happened in the the last 10 years. We talk about changing the oil industry from the inside out. What have been the most important lessons Kaisa has learned during her years at Neste? What has the journey of developing a renewable product line been like? Has the transformation to using renewable products been hard? Kaisa also reveals that 20 years ago she could have become a researcher in climate change. What made her to join an oil company instead? This is the last episode of Boss Level Podcast before summer break. Season 7 starts on September. If you want to enjoy the podcast during summer break, just tune again in to your favorite episodes. You’re most likely to find some new thoughts and ideas, that you’ve missed the first time. Or just start the whole show from beginning

My guest for this episode is Leyla Acaroglu, who calls herself sustainability provocateur and cultural protagonist. She has developed the Disruptive Design Method, an approach to design-led social change. In Boss Level Podcast, we've often talked about systems thinking, but mostly in the context of organizations. With Leyla, we're going to take a look at systems on a much bigger scale: we talk about the systems that sustain life on earth and how we can use design to make our life on earth more sustainable. Sponsor link Zervant - Free invoicing software for small businesses: https://zervant.com/ Links for the episode: Leyla's website Leyla on Twitter Unschool project Leyla's TED talk: "Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore" Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpod

My guest for this episode is Troy Hunt, well known security expert and creator of haveibeenpwned.com. It's a service which allows you to check, whether your email has been leaked as a part of a data breach. We talk about online security, including securing your accounts and using a password manager. We also discuss about privacy and compare our thoughts on social media platforms, messaging applications and encryption. What kind of trade-offs people should make to be more private? What is a pragmatic standpoint on privacy? What is the balance between convenience and privacy? Listen to the episode, tell us what you think! Also remember to check if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breach. Sponsor link Academy of philosophy: https://filosofianakatemia.fi/en Links for the episode: Have i Been Pwned Troy's intro on haveibeenpwned.com Troy's website Troy on Twitter Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: h

Today's topic is personal productivity and my guest is David Allen, author of Getting Things Done. Getting Things Done - often referred to as GTD - is a time management method, described in a book of the same title. It helps you capture all the stuff floating around in your brain, process it into your next actions and projects and then just get them done. The method has significantly improved productivity of probably millions of people. I read the book roughly 10 years ago and have since applied it pretty much every day. It has helped me to get stuff done and to feel less stressed about stuff. In this episode, we walk through some of David's history and talk about how he came up with the ideas and models behind Getting Things Done method. We also cover the basics of the method itself and give some tips on how to get better at it. If you're interested in learning more about the Getting Things Done method, I strongly urge you to find the book and read it. Sponsor link Academy of philosophy: https://filosofiana

My guest for this episode is Björn Wahlroos, one of the most influential businessman in Finland. He's currently the chairman of the board at Sampo Group, Nordea and UPM-Kymmene. We talk about Björn's background in academia, his defining moments, his current roles, sleepless nights, self confidence and leadership. Björn is known to have pretty strong opinions, and he doesn't exactly hold back in expressing them. Listen to the episode and tell us what you think! Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpodcast.com Sami Honkonen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamiHonkonen Sami’s website: http://www.samihonkonen.com Sami’s blog: http://blog.samihonkonen.com

My guest today is Joshua Kerievsky, the CEO of Industrial Logic, a Modern Agile consultancy. He has also started the Modern Agile community and has been a prominent figure in the agile community since the early days. His background is in software, but through his experience in agile methods, he has worked on a much broader range than just the software. We walk through some of Joshua's history and talk a bit about how that came out in the form of Modern Agile community. We'll finish with a topic of curiosity, which - according to Joshua - is a superpower. Sponsor link Reaktor Breakpoint -conference: https://www.reaktorbreakpoint.com/ Links for the episode: Industrial Logic's website Joshua's intro on Industrial Logic's website Joshua on Twitter Joshua on Medium Modern Agile Method Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Webs

My guest for this episode is Annu Nieminen, the CEO and founder of The Upright Project. We talk about Annu's work history at McKinsey and Kasvuryhmä and about Annu's newest project, The Upright Project. Currently we measure companies using mainly financial indicators and, obviously, that’s just one piece of the pie. The Upright Project is trying to fix that and is working on building ways to measure the impact of companies more holistically. Basically they’re hoping to create a set of metrics for the companies impact on the environment, on knowledge, on society and on the health of its employees. I met Annu some years ago and I really enjoy having discussions with her since she is sharp as a knife and very passionate about her work. Hope you enjoy this episode too! Sponsor link Reaktor Breakpoint -conference: https://www.reaktorbreakpoint.com/ Links for the episode: The Upright Project's website Annu Nieminen's Twitter Kasvuryhmä's website Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Fac

For this episode, my guest is Christopher Avery, the man behind The Responsibility Process. The Responsibility Process is a model to help you recognize unproductive mental states and help you take responsibility. I learned about The Responsibility Process from Christopher roughly 7 years ago and it has stayed with me since. It’s one of my go-to tools personally and I often use it with teams. We discussed about how one can learn to use The Responsibility Process and how it is useful model for both individuals and teams. The model has been condensed into a fairly simple poster. You can find it from the link list below. Sponsor links: Neuroleadership: https://neuroleadership.fi/ Kevytjuridiikka.fi: https://kevytjuridiikka.fi/ Links for the episode: The Responsibility Process Poster Christopher Avery's website The Leadership Gift Program Christopher Avery's Twitter Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bos

My first guest for the season is Teemu Arina. Teemu is a biohacker, a technologist, an entrepreneur and he was recently selected as Public Speaker of the Year in Finland. We talk about biohacking and the science behind it. And we talk about how biohacking strives for balance instead of maximising performance in all areas of life. Sponsor links: Neuroleadership: https://neuroleadership.fi/ Kevytjuridiikka.fi: https://kevytjuridiikka.fi/ Links for the episode: Teemu on Twitter Biohacker’s handbook Biohakkerin käsikirja Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpodcast.com Sami Honkonen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamiHonkonen Sami’s website: http://www.samihonkonen.com Sami’s blog: http://blog.samihonkonen.com

My guest is Markku Kulmala. Markku is one of the most prominent scientists in the world in the field of atmospheric and earth system sciences. At University of Helsinki, he leads a research group that has more than 35 published papers in journals Nature and Science. Markku is the person you want to learn from on the topic of climate change research. We talk about how they do their research, what their initial results show and how they’re hoping the results help humankind fight climate change. Sponsor link: Neste: http://www.neste.com Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpodcast.com Sami Honkonen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamiHonkonen Sami's website: http://www.samihonkonen.com Sami's blog: http://blog.samihonkonen.com

For this episode, my guest is Henrik Kniberg. Henrik is a prominent figure in the agile community. If you’ve seen the video on Spotify engineering culture, that video is created by him. He has also authored several books on agile. Henrik is also one of the early guests of the the podcast and the previous episode we did was about two years ago. Back then we discussed Henrik’s agile coaching work at Lego and Spotify and how he helped his kids win a robot battle against experienced programmers. But now, recently, he has shifted his professional focus towards something more important. He’s focusing on reducing the impact of climate change. We talk about how to be climate neutral, how to invest in climate projects, the community Henrik is running called Climate Crisplet, and how companies should deal with climate change. Sponsor link: Neste: http://www.neste.com Links for the episode: Henrik on Twitter Friendly Guide to Climate Change Go Climate Neutral Trine Climate Crisplet Links for the podcast: Mailing l

Today Boss Level Podcast is covering one of the biggest problems in the world, poverty. My guest is Leila Janah who runs two companies aimed at helping the extremely poor by giving them work. One of her companies, Samasource, provides digital work in developing countries, and the other, LXMI, is an organic and fair trade skin care brand employing women. In addition to talking about businesses, we discuss how companies can measure impact. Sponsor link: Gofore: http://www.gofore.com Agile42: http://www.agile42.com Links for the episode: Leila's website Leila on Twitter Leila on LinkedIn Samasource LXMI Leila's book Give Work Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpodcast.com Sami Honkonen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamiHonkonen Sami's website: http://www.samihonkonen.com Sami's blog: http://bl

I’m interviewing Bjarte Bogsnes. Bjarte is one of the key people behind the adaptive management model called Beyond Budgeting. If there’s one person you want to learn about Beyond Budgeting from, it’s Bjarte. Bjarte is one of the key people who have been leading Statoil’s journey from traditional corporate budgeting to a completely new management style. Along the way, he’s authored books on the things he has learned. What’s good to know before we get started is that despite the name, Beyond Budgeting is not only about getting rid of budgeting. It is a new approach to management that emphasizes empowerment and adaptivity. Beyond Budgeting’s 12 principles cover topics such as purpose, values, transparency, autonomy, targets and resource allocation. It is much larger than just budgets. Sponsor links: Gofore: http://www.gofore.com Agile42: http://www.agile42.com Links for the episode: Article about Tomorrow Labs in Helsingin Sanomat Tomorrow Labs, Careers Bjarte Bogsnes on Twitter Statoil Beyond Budgeting Lin

This is my interview with Harri Valpola. Harri is the CEO of Curious AI, a Helsinki-based 20 person startup that’s aiming to build a general artificial intelligence. Now that’s a pretty bold goal when Facebook’s head of AI research just recently said that in terms of general intelligence, we’re not even close to a rat. Harri is a respected researcher in the field of artificial intelligence. He knows his stuff. The previous company he founded, ZenRobotics, builds robots so that’s pretty cool too. We talk about what general artificial intelligence would be like, whether we should try to simulate the human brain or not and how curiosity is a great guide in life. Sponsor link: Valuemotive: http://valuemotive.com Wunderdog: http://wunder.dog Links for the episode: Curious AI Harri on Wired magazine Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id10

Today’s guest is Bengt Holmström. Bengt is Finnish, but he’s spent the last 40 years living in the US. Currently he’s a professor of economics at MIT. Bengt was recently awarded the Nobel prize in economic sciences together with his Harvard colleague Oliver Hart for their contribution to contract theory. Essentially, Bengt has spent decades studying incentives and trying to figure out how to design better incentive structures. This has been a recurring theme on the podcast so I’m sure you can appreciate how excited I am to have Bengt on as a guest. We talk about what it feels like to win the Nobel prize, incentives (obviously), and how transparency isn’t necessarily always a good thing. Sponsor links: Finitec: http://www.finitec.fi Wunderdog: http://wunder.dog Links for the episode: Bengt on Wikipedia Bengt's Nobel prize lecture on pay for performance Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod

Today’s topic is machine learning and I’m talking to one of the brightest minds in the field, Hilary Mason. She’s the founder of Fast Forward Labs, a machine intelligence research company. She also advises startups through Accel, a prominent venture capital firm. If you’re interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning, I’m pretty sure you’ll love this episode. Sponsor link: Valuemotive: http://www.valuemotive.com Links for the episode: Hilary Mason on Twitter Cloudera Fast Forward Labs Accel Speakersforum: New Speaker of the Year Steal My Job -podcast Sami Honkonen on Akonniemen Avara Luonto Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpodcast.com Sami Honkonen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamiHonkonen Sami's website: http://www.samihonkonen.com Sami's blog: http://blog.samihonkonen.com

While I was in Australia in June to keynote the Agile Australia conference I had the privilege to interview Troy Magennis. When I first heard Troy speak at a conference years ago I remember how impressed I was with his deep understanding of the mathematics involved in forecasting. After listening to this episode I think you’ll be equally impressed. Troy is the founder of Focused Objective, a consultancy that helps companies with forecasting, portfolio planning, risk management and metric selection. We talk about why 3 to 7 recent samples is often better than thousands of samples from last year, how we need several opposing metrics to prevent local optimization and how we’ve lost the art of post mortems. Troy has a ton of resources that are freely available for you to download and try out. For example, you might like the team dashboard Troy has built. After listening to the episode you can use his tools to take your forecasting to the boss level. Sponsor link: Finitec: http://www.finitec.fi Links for the epi

My guest today is Katri Saarikivi. Katri is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Helsinki. She studies empathy in digital environments. Essentially she’s trying to figure out how we could better express ourselves in digital conversations. Sponsor link: Finitec: http://www.finitec.fi Links for the episode: Katri Saarikivi on Twitter Tomorrow Labs is hiring Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelpodcast.com Sami Honkonen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamiHonkonen Sami's website: http://www.samihonkonen.com Sami's blog: http://blog.samihonkonen.com

Today, I’m chatting with Sara Öhrvall. Sara is the Co-founder and Senior Advisor at Mindmill Network. Mindmill helps companies understand how digital technologies impact their business. Before Mindmill Sara was the Senior Vice President of R&D at the Bonnier Group. Sara sits on several boards. For example, she’s on the board of SEB, a Nordic corporate bank and Investor, the leading owner of Nordic-based international companies. She also writes a column for Dagens Industri, which is the financial daily of Sweden. In 2017 Sara was selected for Wired’s list of 50 most inspiring female influencers from across Europe. She’s one of the best and brightest women in technology. We talk about the impact technology will have on people and businesses and how our companies should adapt to that change. Sponsor links: Nitor: http://www.nitor.fi/myths Talented: http://www.talented.fi Links for the episode: Sara Öhrvall on Twitter Mindmill Network Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook

John Seddon is the inventor of The Vanguard Method. The Vanguard Method is a way of helping organizations move from command and control towards systems design. Seddon is the author of books such as Freedom from Command and Control and The Whitehall Effect. He’s currently working on a book titled Beyond Command and Control. Seddon’s work has provoked a lot of thought and has significantly deepened my understanding of how organizations function. We talk about organizations as systems, value and failure demand, incentives, system conditions, budgeting and how the system drives behavior. Sponsor link: Nitor: http://nitor.fi Talented: http://talented.fi Links for the episode: John Seddon The Vanguard Method Freedom From Command and Control The Whitehall Effect Links for the podcast: Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/P0dpf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bosslevelpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/bosslevelpod iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fi/podcast/boss-level/id1041885043 Website: http://www.bosslevelp