Aki Mäkivirta's CTO award acceptance speech: “Everyone is important. And, everybody in the company can make a difference”

Warm thanks to Business Finland, Technology Industries of Finland, and Spinverse for this great honour.

Representing the Small and Medium Size Businesses, or SMEs, prompts me to consider the special challenges that face smaller companies when it comes to creating innovative high-quality solutions to customer problems.

Being small means that everyone’s contribution within the company counts.
A core challenge for an SME is to find and recruit people who bring in new and complementary knowledge and experience, and who feel at home in a compact team.

To draw in these kinds of talents, a company needs a good reputation. While skilful marketing can create a good-looking external image for a company, increasingly however, people want to find deeper values when they consider joining a company.

Genelec is a heavily value-based company, and I think this is reflected in the kind of people who want to join us.

Genelec manufactures loudspeakers for critical listening. We aim for the best possible audio quality, high reliability, and a long product lifetime.
We are constantly looking to deepen our understanding of the science of hearing audio, as well as the technologies required to build the perfect loudspeakers.

We want to build products in an environmentally sustainable way, using recycled materials and ensuring that the materials that we use can be recycled.

We stand at the crossing point of art, science and technology. It is a good place to be.

The people who are creating our new technology solutions can sympathize with such values. People want to work for a good cause – serving art, creating joy for our customers, and doing so with high ethical values.

We value everyone in the company. Everyone is needed. Everyone is important. And, everybody in the company can make a difference.

All of this generates a good reputation, and we have seen that this kind of good reputation becomes an enticing call for many talents in the field.
Even in our geographically challenging location in the remote countryside, at Iisalmi, we are constantly finding top people who want to join the company and offer their contribution.

Being an SME, cooperation is vital. We are too small to survive alone. We survive together with others, in cooperation.

When searching for new solutions, one needs good relationships with the people who work at the forefront of innovation in the scientific community. This means participating and contributing in conferences where scientists gather together, and cooperating with universities to deepen understanding. Technology transfer takes place when people talk and work together.

The other important cooperation happens in the network of businesses.

Today, businesses are linked together in networks of cooperation. Companies join to develop new technologies, to lay down standards, to serve one another with goods and services.

Together we are strong. Working together and working for one another, we all benefit.

A challenge for SMEs is to find the right partners and connections. All the forums where companies meet and share their aspirations are important in enabling this cooperation and in finding those partners.

Technology Industries of Finland has done great work to enable this interaction. Warm thanks for your excellent work.

Genelec has introduced a fair number of industry-firsts in the audio engineering community. When we embark on creating something that does not yet exist and we do not know precisely how it can be done, the investment of time, people and resources feels huge. It is important to have a strong vision of what we could achieve, but to take the steps to get there requires strong faith.

SMEs have to plan their budgets carefully. There is no money to waste. Research and cooperation can be expensive. Creating new technology carries a great financial risk.

At this point, I want to warmly thank Business Finland. Without their continued positive support of our research and development a lot of the things we have achieved over the years would simply not have been possible. Warm thanks for this invaluable support.

Being a small company means that everyone’s contribution within the company counts.

A core challenge for an SME is to find and recruit people who bring in new and complementary knowledge and experience.

I am deeply indebted to all the wonderful people at Genelec, and especially to all the super talented people in the Research and Development unit.
We have been building the success of the company for over 40 years now, and it feels like we have only just started. I feel honoured to have the privilege to continue to work with each and every one of you.
Going forward, life seems to be offering us new challenges at every turn.

We are now living through great uncertainty caused by the coronavirus. No one knows what the future world will look like, and we all feel there is no going back. We are learning a new way of getting things done, working together, and being connected.

We are now all seeking the way forward. Let’s do it together. Together we are strong.

I wish you all good health and courage in finding the right solution in the future world we are now entering.

Warm thanks,

Aki Mäkivirta