The SHIFT team got a new member in June, as Hanna Sormunen started in her position as Head of Sales. “The environment businesses need to navigate is changing at rapid speed and some skills useful five years ago may be completely outdated today. Innovation and cooperation, on the other hand, are never out of fashion. I would even claim that the role of collaboration and cooperation will increase even further in the future”, Hanna tells about what got her eye in the job announcement.

“Innovation and cooperation are never out of fashion.”

“I see SHIFT as an innovative, bold, and fast-moving organisation, which has the capacity of supporting and sparring companies to be future-ready. The company’s will to adopt new skills is essential to business development and has a positive impact on society as a whole”.

In her position as Head of Sales, Hanna will not only be guiding other companies to the path of intelligent business and business development but gets to work with SHIFT strategy as well. The core team is compact and the organisation is flat, so the responsibilities of decision making and development work are shared among the crew. “I’m very passionate about business development! It’s so cool to work with future plans and strategies.” 

Hanna didn’t hesitate a minute to dial in after spotting the job announcement and was actually the first candidate reaching out to CEO Mari Männistö regarding the position. “SHIFT has a strong brand and my understanding of the organisation was that it seeks opportunities rather than sees challenges. Coming up with a new solid event concept during the turbulent spring tells me the team is not stuck with the old habits.” “And that they are a little stubborn”, she then adds and laughs.

“Coming up with a new solid event concept during the turbulent spring tells me the team is not stuck with the old habits.”

In early 2020, SHIFT Business Festival was ready to celebrate its half-decade anniversary, and getting ready for the smooth sail under the slogan Celebrating intelligent business. Due to the unexpected events in the spring, the concept was re-wrote, turned into a two-month lasting hybrid production, which now goes under the name SHIFT Business Webstival 2020.

What has not been changed is the content plan of bringing people together and looking at intelligent business from different angles. Intelligent business defined by SHIFT is sustainable and profitable, always looking to the future, and able to adopt new technologies when they’re relevant to the business. “We are all ready for the autumn festival and welcome businesses of all sizes to join, challenge themselves and share their insights and experiences!”

Read more about SHIFT Business Webstival 2020 here.