Why I am here? Tuomas
As we consider ourselves being in person-to-person business rather than in B2B, we wanted to show our human side in addition to the professional profiles. We’ll start a short series in which each of us sheds light on why they are here and what gets them up and running in the morning. First one up is Tuomas!
I might be one of those who somehow at a quite young age consciously or subconsciously knew that they would eventually become an entrepreneur. When looking back to my early childhood, I remember “founding” a restaurant with my little brother to serve my parents, our relatives and guests visiting our home. I have “started” an ice hockey card dealership with a childhood friend, picked raspberries with a success fee rather than an hourly rate and cleaned toilets at my father’s electronics business in which I got truly exposed to the everyday life of a Finnish SME.
First own business
Being an analytically wired guy, my grandmother always thought I would become an engineer. However, business of any kind has always been my cup of tea and that’s why I eventually ended up studying strategy and finance. Investing and passive income have intrigued me since primary school and that combined with the lack of truly investor friendly and entrepreneurial investment products resulted in me co-founding a real estate investment company with three close friends at the “ripe” age of 23. During the years, however, Tamado Investments has taught me a great deal about setting up and growing a company from zero.
Taste of strategy and management consulting
Despite my great interest in versatile business problems, I promised myself I would never work for a management consulting company when applying to entry level positions during my university studies. I thought that while wearing a suit and participating in challenging assignments would be cool, the large corporate atmosphere wouldn’t be the place for me. Nevertheless, I ran into a small strategy consultancy looking for business analysts and decided to try to combine the two: working within a smaller and more entrepreneurial organization while engaging with bigger clients to learn as much business acumen and as fast as possible. After rounds of typical consulting interviews I managed to get the job. Looking back, enjoying the ride for couple of years suited me very well and I got to learn the “consulting mindset” together with a toolbox and best practices from several domestic and international companies.
Passion for SMEs
Still, the itch to work in and for smaller companies never faded and thus through Anders, Aamu Partners’ board member, I landed in different SMEs in Southern Finland to help the top management in basically anything analytical: numbers of any sort, finance, strategy, management reporting, process improvement, funding rounds, operational improvement etc. Even though the means differed from case to case, the goal was always common: to raise the value of the companies consistently over time in close and intensive cooperation with the entrepreneurs. Through this work I got to know the rest of Aamu’s board and my marvelous co-founders: Wilhelm, Sanna and Alberto. And before I knew it, Aamu Partners was up and running to help like-minded people to succeed!
Importance of people in business
As a person I’m always pro growth and improvement, results-oriented and competitive. Still, I’ve enjoyed both individual track and field as well as team sports such as ice hockey, football and floorball. I want to do good for the people around me be it sports team members, family, friends, colleagues, clients or new acquaintances. Seeing, feeling and hearing others’ progress towards their goals and dreams gives me great joy and that’s why I believe in purpose and people driven businesses.
So why am I at Aamu Partners?
To answer the question why am I working for Aamu, I would say it’s a combination of my personality and values, professional background, right timing, right people with whom I share my values and of course some pure luck. I couldn’t be more proud and happy what we are building here together with the growing team and our wonderful clients: we are fresh, truly unique and have proven to resonate well with other entrepreneurial people. Personally I want Aamu to facilitate tremendous success for our SME clients for many years to come but also to be highly attractive to both current and future bright minds as we call them. We are building a company for which like-minded people are thrilled to work for in order to taste the everyday life of growth seeking SMEs!
What colleagues say about Tuomas?
- “If Tuomas wasn’t into consulting he could be a pilot. He’s so calm that even the failure of both engines wouldn’t get him into panic.”
- “He could also become a great carpenter as he always hits the nail on the head when pinpointing next focus area for business improvements.”
- “Even though he breaths business, he wants to do it in a laidback and humane way.”
- “I am pretty sure Tuomas could make a decent superman. He is great at all kinds of “for-the-greater-good” things” 🙂
