Meet the FiBAN board for 2021

Reima Linnanvirta, Chair of the Board

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

Annukka Mickelsson, Vice-Chair of the Board

Annukka Mickelsson got excited about startup investing during the financial crisis when there was a lack of financing for potential ideas and competent teams. She saw a need for an ecosystem where brainpower meets capital/funding to build new growth. She became a FiBAN member in 2015 to learn in practice about startups’ growth paths. Today, the majority of investments are directed to data analytics and services. Annukka’s background is in the real-estate and financial sector as well as politics. She has long experience in team leading and board work.

Esa Kinnunen

Esa Kinnunen started his career in international technology companies flying around the globe for a 15 years period. In late 2011, Esa moved on to the startup-entrepreneur phase, when he co-founded Nordcloud company and expanded it to the international market at a fast pace.  After a successful exit from Nordcloud, Esa continues as an angel investor and board professional in several fast-growing companies. His motto is “What would you do if you were not afraid of anything?”

Kim Väisänen

Kim is an angel investor with an entrepreneurial background and mindset. He became a full-time investor in 2015 after having sold his company to the London Stock Exchange and has today invested in almost 30 companies in different fields.  One of his portfolio companies is Framery that has grown fast and won the Internationalization Award of the President of the Republic of Finland. Kim describes his approach to angel investing as a co-entrepreneur. “I put a bit of my time, effort, and money and we try to make things greater, bigger, and better – together. I have always said that if you have been successful you have to share it and help the other people.”

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.

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 the pain and confusion of the early days.