people

Timo Hämäläinen

Senior Lead, Innovations

Who?

Timo Hämäläinen is a veteran of research and foresight at Sitra. His current focus is on topics dealing with creating value and competitiveness, new business and innovation policies, and major changes in the economy and society. Timo’s passion is contemplating social change and the current historic upheaval we are going through, something which he does both in his work and in his spare time.

What?

If you’re in need of a comprehensive understanding of the long-term development of the world economy or the enormous changes it is currently going through, Timo is your man. Timo is also extremely knowledgeable when it comes to business and innovation policy, competitiveness factors in the national economy, the Finnish innovation system, issues in economic and social governance and the solutions to them, and new challenges facing modern society.

Timo has experience in the capital market, in academia, at the OECD, in international research projects, social innovation projects, foresight activities and the planning of business and innovation policy. He has published several books in Finnish and English on the current upheaval of Finnish society and industrialised nations, as well as society’s ability to adjust to change.

Timo holds a Master’s degree in Marketing from the Helsinki School of Economics (Aalto University) and an MBA and PhD in International Business from Rutgers University in New Jersey, United States.

What else?

In addition to reflecting on changes in the world, Timo has long been an avid angler and enjoys basketball and working out. His latest passion, however, is tennis.

Timo believes that the optimistic visions of technology acolytes will not be realised any time soon, because we are facing massive changes in the old, established social institutions and structures.