FiBAN Board

Reima Linnanvirta, Chairperson

Reima is an angel investor and board professional with a passion on helping startups and growth companies to fulfill their true potential. Previous career in consulting, relating to e.g. tranasctions, financing and law; both as a professional in a multinational consultancy and as a founder of a boutique advisory firm.

Teemu Varpanen, Vice Chairperson

​Teemu Varpanen is a software industry expert with 25 years of experience in both small and corporate sized businesses. His investment focus is mainly on very early stage B2B SaaS companies with an idea, passion and good team chemistry. Currently, Teemu has a dozen startup investments in his portfolio. He is actively building bridges between people, teams and ecosystems. ​

Noora Fagerström

Noora is the co-founder of Jungle Juice Bar. After being an entrepreneur and a business angel for quite some time, she has now taken the role of being in the FiBAN board. Noora was awarded as The Growth Company Leader of the Year in 2019, and she has received the Veuve Clicquot New Generation award in 2016 for being a successful female leader. Her motto is “if you don’t take risks, you won’t achieve anything”.

Saga Forss

Saga has an extensive background in Corporate Finance (M&A) both domestically and internationally. She has a broad network in Europe, and especially in the Nordics. During the past 10 years she has been both entrepreneur and investor with focus on the food sector. Said that, she has made angel investments in technology, education and med-tech where she considers impact an important investment criteria. Currently she is an investor in 11 companies, such as Soup&More Oy, Jävla Sås Bolag as well as New Nordic School, Future Dialog and Combonostics Oy. She has successfully exited Leipomo Keisari, Jungle Juice Bar (partly) and Talokaivo Oy.

Annukka Mickelsson

Annukka became a member of FiBAN a few years ago for a keen interest in ecosystem building and combining both brain power and financial investment in early stage companies. Her investments include Saas and data analytics companies. She would also love to see more scaling ideas in other industries. Annukka’s background is in banking and lobbying, and she has worked both Finland and UK. She has long experience in team leading, coaching and board work.

Esa Mäkeläinen

Esa is a former investment banker and current software entrepreneur since 2000. His software company, Valuatum, focuses on financial analysis software (equity research and creding rating/scoring models) for different financial institutions. Esa/Valuatum Oy has done startup investments since 2011 and focuses mainly on software companies operating with same SaaS-model as Valuatum or disrupting businesses in fintech, energy, cleantech or bioeconomy sectors. Currently Esa has investments in about 15 companies (mainly B2B SaaS) including e.g. Enevo, Thirdpresence, OGOShip and Liid. Esa has been in FiBAN board since 2017, and he wants to continue developing Fiban Follow, improving screening and other internal processes, and measuring profitability and effectiveness of FiBAN investments with aggregate numbers.

Tuomas Pahlman

Tuomas worked for ten years in two co-founded startups. Both were sold to Public listed industrial buyers and after the second exit, he was teased to experience the fame and pain of corporate life and served a couple of years as a Global Head of Digital Development at Sealed Air Corporation. Now Tuomas is getting back to the scene as an angel investor, focusing on software, analytics, and sensor companies, but even more, he wants to actively mentor founder teams through pain and confusion of the early days.

Board 2019

Janne Jormalainen, Chairman
Reima Linnanvirta, Vice Chairman
Saga Forss
Esa Mäkeläinen
Ali Omar
Markko Vaarnas
Teemu Varpanen

Board 2018
Janne Jormalainen, Chairman
Sami Etula, Vice Chairman
Pia Erkinheimo
Esa Mäkeläinen
Ali Omar
Torsti Tenhunen
Teemu Varpanen

Board 2017
Torsti Tenhunen, Chairman
Pontus Stråhlman, Vice Chairman
Anna-Kaarina Lipsanen
Esa Mäkeläinen
Mirja Laulajainen
Janne Jormalainen
Sami Etula

Board 2016
Jaakko Salminen, Chairman
Torsti Tenhunen, Vice Chairman
Anna-Kaarina Lipsanen
Kaisa Hernberg
Harry Brade
Juha Saarinen
Pontus Stråhlman

Board 2015
Jaakko Salminen, Chairman
Anna-Kaarina Lipsanen, Vice-Chairman
Aarne Sipilä
Ari Hyppönen
Harry Brade
Juha Kurkinen
Torsti Tenhunen

Board 2014
Riku Asikainen, Chairman
Jaakko Salminen, Vice-Chairman
Aarne Sipilä
Anne Berner
Ari Hyppönen
Juha Kurkinen
Pekka Vartiainen

Board 2013
Riku Asikainen, Chairman
Jaakko Salminen, Vice-Chairman
Ari Hyppönen
Jaakko Salminen
Marika Af Enehjelm
Pekka Vartiainen
Tapio Heikkilä

Board 2012
Juha Kurkinen, Chairman
Ari Korhonen, Vice-Chairman
Feodor Aminoff
Jussi Heinilä
Mammu Kaario
Riku Asikainen
Tapio Heikkilä

Board 2011
Juha Kurkinen, Chairman
Ari Korhonen, Vice-Chairman
Feodor Aminoff
Jussi Heinilä
Mammu Kaario
Riku Asikainen
Tapio Heikkilä

The Founders of FiBAN