Careers do not always go the way you expect. Cherry’s founding partner Vidi has jumped from business to HR and from corporate to broad scale entrepreneur.
I interviewed one of Cherry’s founding partners about his career to date. Vidi’s motto in working life could be summed up as “with a bit of luck, enough skills and courage, you can make it”. But how did she get to this point?
What did you originally go to study and how did you end up starting your first business while still a student?
I followed my brother to study mathematics and international economics at the Otaniemi University of Technology’s Department of Physics. I had been quite good at maths and at school, but at the Helsinki University of Technology I realised that it wasn’t quite good enough anymore. I didn’t really have the motivation or the skills, so I ended up studying business. My brother ended up in Portugal as a professor of mathematics.
During my studies, we did some internship work for Neste, where we were asked if we also had a company. We didn’t, but we marched in to set one up. We were entrepreneurial environmental consultants, ahead of our time in the early 90s.
But was Nokia still more attractive as an employer than as an entrepreneur?
I ended up working at Nokia just as it was growing in 1995 and spent more than 15 years there in various positions. At Nokia they gave a lot of responsibility to young people because the business was growing so much. You could basically choose which country you wanted to work in.
The jump from business to HR happened almost by accident, when there was a vacancy in a neighbouring unit and a colleague asked why I shouldn’t apply. I felt like I needed another challenge and ended up in a position with no HR experience whatsoever. This reflects the Nokia of the time – opportunities were given and encouraged, and with good people and processes around it was easy to learn new things.
In the 2010s, a bit of a new wind started to blow at Nokia, and redundancy packages were offered to voluntary leavers. I decided to grab one and became an entrepreneur again.
How did entrepreneurship feel after all those years of corporatisation?
I started a few businesses, including a wine import company, which we sold. But pretty soon I was headhunted to Fazer, where I was in charge of HR for the next eight years. Perhaps the bravest career decision I ever made was to jump back from there to become an entrepreneur, with the intention of doing the kind of work I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. Now I’ve been an entrepreneur again for the last five years: in addition to Cherry, I have my own consulting company, a wine importing company and I’m also an angel investor.
The number of companies providing interim managers has also increased in Finland in recent years. What makes Cherry different?
Cherry’s aim is modestly to disrupt the Finnish interim market. We want to be the most agile, fastest and most desirable option for both companies and interim professionals. Other Nordic countries are ahead of Finland in the use of hiring managers, but we saw the need growing in Finland three years ago when we set out to build the company. In our company, both sales and recruitment are handled exclusively by partners, all of whom are experts in their fields. We also don’t have big CV banks, but a well-curated talent pool of the best professionals in their fields.
You say “a bit of luck, enough skills and courage” is enough to succeed in the world of work. What else would you like to say to future entrepreneurs or interim professionals?
Resilience is key. I say it to my own children so often that they are already bored out of their minds. Everyone fails sometimes, but the difference is how you cope. Do your best, and have the courage to try and fail.
Cherry provides the best interim professionals for demanding roles and projects in companies across all industries. Our business model is based on speed, flexibility and efficiency. From our unique pool of talent, we place hiring managers on short and long-term assignments, full or part-time. At the same time, our clients avoid fixed costs and pay only for results instead of mere presence. For our top performers, we offer the best projects and a strong network for selling expertise. As an entrepreneur, you work flexibly and take control of your own career as a pioneer of work disruption. cherry.fi.
