Krogerus Transactions Forum explored technology and innovation as value creators

At a time when technological progress is accelerating and reshaping markets globally, innovation has become a defining factor in determining which companies and which countries win the future. Public debate often focuses on problems and shortcomings, even though Finland is uniquely positioned to succeed in this new era, with its world-class technological expertise, strong research ecosystem, and internationally attractive growth companies. Krogerus Transactions Forum 2026, organised on 30 September, explored how Finland can continue to strengthen its position at the forefront of global innovation and future value creation. This article discusses how to fuel future champions in the intersection of capital and innovation.

"One key takeaway from the Transactions Forum's discussions is that innovation is central to how companies compete, grow and create value, but it's also not the final destination. The hard question is what companies do with innovation, how they commercialise it and scale beyond their home market. With the Transactions Forum, we wanted to trigger and inspire further growth. We need to get better at commercialising our ideas, which requires a lot of capital, ambition, experienced management and investors. Pairing our strengths in technology and innovation with strong commercialisation will help us play a meaningful role in creating the next generation of not only Finnish, Nordic or European, but truly global innovation and technology-driven companies", recaps Head of M&A, Partner Marcus Möller.

This year, Transactions Forum centred around the theme Technology and Innovation: Shaping the Champions of Tomorrow. The programme explored how innovation influences shareholder value and capital allocation while also providing insights from entrepreneurs on commercialising ideas and scaling emerging technologies. Featured speakers included Nokia's President and CEO Justin Hotard; IQM Quantum Computers' CEO and Co-Founder Jan Goetz; BIT ODD's COO Annina Salvén; Evac Group's CEO Björn Ullbro; The Long Drink Company's Co-Founder Sakari Manninen; Chair of the Board of Directors at University of Helsinki, QMill and Semicon, Venture Partner and Kvanted Antti Vasara; and Chair of the Board at Technology Industries of Finland and Vaisala Ville Voipio.

How active owners and ambitious targets can drive Finland's growth 

The first session of the forum focused on the intersection of capital, growth and innovation. The session was opened with Solidium's CEO Matts Rosenberg's introduction, that emphasised value creation through innovation as a central part in solving Finland's growth challenge. He referred to a 2025 McKinsey study on the key factors contributing to the slower growth of Finnish large-cap companies: modest growth-targets, conservative capital allocation, and a lack in the ability to foster innovation.

"The good thing is that there are clear steps stakeholders can take to close this gap. It starts from the top with responsible and active ownership setting higher growth targets, boards playing an important role in creating an aspirational culture, and CEO's and management teams shooting for the stars with their growth plans. That’s the only way we can create meaningful change. There has been a visible change in sentiment in Finland, underscoring that we all need to do everything we can to solve the Finnish growth challenge. Active and engaged owners have an important role in setting the correct ambition level, creating alignment among key stakeholders and in instilling that innovation should be seen as a disciplined capital allocation and strategy issue", summarises Matts Rosenberg.

Driving innovation in companies – from structures to mindset

After the introduction, the session continued with a panel discussion with Maria Wasastjerna (Managing Partner & Co-founder at Kvanted), Bengt Maunsbach (Partner at Altor), and Matts Rosenberg who brought together three perspectives on innovation and capital: early-stage venture capital investing, PE investments in more mature companies and state investments. The panel was moderated by Krogerus' Partner Johan Aalto.

In line with Matts Rosenberg's introduction, the panellists highlighted active ownership and the role of boards, CEO's and the management team in driving innovation. Boards play an important role in setting the direction and supporting development, while CEO's set the tone from the top and need to take a vocal approach in defining the ambition level internally. The right board can, in turn, be a powerful resource for the management. According to Bengt Maunsbach and Matts Rosenberg, boards should have diverse and international compositions with different backgrounds, genders, ages, technologies and points of view. Capturing these perspectives in decision-making is essential for boards to effectively support innovation.

In early-stage companies, this doesn't necessarily mean having a formal board. Instead, a combination of investors and key experts can provide the necessary support, potentially strengthened by a former founder from the same sector or an experienced company executive. According to Maria Wasastjerna, Finland should leverage its strong industrial heritage by creating more bridges through board representation and advisory roles. These connections can support the development of early-stage companies, while also helping further innovation in larger industrial companies.

The panellists also highlighted the fearlessness in thinking that can typically be found in early-stage companies, that should also be embraced in more mature companies. Setting ambitious growth targets and having meaningful discussions on the trade-off between these targets and the fact that not all investments and R&D projects will succeed, should be incorporated into all boardrooms.

"The first step of getting bold is being proud. Despite difficult times, Finland has seen growth along with fantastic tech companies, consumer brands, service businesses and global industrial champions. Make sure you are diversifying and have several legs to stand on with many small, medium and large companies, rather than a few huge companies. In order to get to that, you need to continue to diversify capitalism and have many pools of capital and many owners – that’s strong fuel for innovation", says Bengt Maunsbach.

Maria Wasastjerna continues, also emphasising the importance of several pools of capital: "It's important to keep in mind that champions, such as IQM and ICEYE, took many years to develop into the companies they are today. ICEYE's financing round was a great example of getting different pockets of capital to join since it had many pools of investors from state to industrial and venture capital. How to make this more systemic rather than an exceptional incident, would be important for Finland to build on."

Matts Rosenberg concludes by tying the discussions to his introduction on active ownership: "The solution starts from the top: the ownership base in Finland can hopefully develop over the years to make sure we have sufficient focus from owners on innovation and the right ambition level. At the same time, there should be more alignment between owners, boards and management teams to drive this development. There's a new generation building in Finland as a result of the new success stories, positively influencing the atmosphere. Hopefully they can take the role of active owners in the future."

Krogerus Transactions Forum will be back next year 

We are already looking forward to organising Transactions Forum 2027, which we will release more information of later. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our mailing list to receive more information on Krogerus' webinars and events.

See you next year at Krogerus Transactions Forum 2027!