Episode 38: Developing a new university in Finland and real international higher ed

In another international outing for the podcast this episode is brought to you via Finland from where I am joined by the first Chief Financial Officer I've spoken to on the podcast, Marianna Bom of Aalto University. We begin by exploring Marianna's career journey, from her first post graduation role working for an elevator company before moving to Nokia, where her strength in Russian language saw her setting up operations in Moscow, before spending some time based in Colombia. Having become tired of the short termism of the commercial world the joined Aalto 12 years ago, just at its establishment, and is now the last person remaining from the original leadership team. 

Marianna describes how Aalto was successfully formed from three different universities and a private foundation at the same time as other structural changes in Finnish Higher Education (as also noted in this earlier podcast with Esa Hämäläinen of the University of Helsinki).

The new university was consolidated very quickly onto a single campus bringing immediate benefits from interactions between the disciplines for students and staff alike and some impressive innovations and cultural changes. In terms of professional services Marianna had been used to working in a matrix structure and the establishment of business partners in schools has worked well at the university despite some initial suspicion from some faculty.

Marianna also observes that Aalto is a very international establishment with around 40% of Faculty and a large proportion of students too from outside Finland. Interestingly, most internal meetings are conducted in English because of the range of international staff. We discuss the University's response to Covid which Marianna feels they managed well but are now finding new challenges as staff seek to adapt to hybrid working patterns and aim to rebuild the sense of a community on campus.

Looking at the broader positioning of universities in Finnish society Marianna suggests that one of the biggest challenges they face is in demonstrating their value to the nation and showing the value they add and that Higher Education remains worthy of investment.

We conclude a very interesting discussion by agreeing on our shared appreciation of HUMANE and similar European groups which offer great opportunities for senior university leaders to network and to learn from each other and avoid always reinventing the wheel.