As a Finn, born in 1971, I spend my youth skiing, snowboarding, riding BMX bikes, wind surfing and racing motocross. After mantadory school was done, at the tender age of 17, I went to St. Anton, Austria to spend my first ski season in the Alps. After that I spent four more winters in the places like Levi in the Finnish Lapland, Sun Valley in Idaho and Northern California snowboarding and mountain biking.
Extreme- and outdoor sports business has been a big part of my life for 22 years, as I have worked as an entrepreneur/partner of few exciting companies, including:
R-Cycles, (1993-1999) mountain bike store and distribution company that I founded from my garage. R-Cycles distributed brands like Marzocchi, Santa Cruz, Camelbak, Raceface and Syncros to Finland. R-Cycles also had a retail store that sold annually more than 300 Kona bikes, some Trek’s importantly had Finland’s largest mailorder/catalog business for mountain bike parts and accessories. R-Cycles was sold to ROC Media Group on 1999.
ROC Media Group, (1999-2005) First Scandinavian media company specialized on extreme and endurance sports. ROC produced magazines, websites and TV-programs in Finland and Sweden. Most important media properties were the Runner’s World, running magazine (Finnish edition), Outside magazine, (Finnish and Swedish editions), Kadens, Swedish cycling magazine, and ROCsport.com portals / weekly TV programs in Finland and Sweden. ROC filed bankrupsy on 2005.
Sportsyndicator, (2006-2009) sports advertising network that sells and syndicates online advertising to niche sports websites worldwide. London based Sportsyndicator has a network of more than 600 websites, main markets being UK and USA. Company helps advertisers to manage ad campaigns on numerous sites easily and effectively.
Zherpa (2009-) Next generation media company focused on location based online services, blogs and beyond.
When I am not working, you can find me doing outdoor sports in Chamonix – Les Houches. I love running and mountain biking, and in a winter time it’s all about snowboarding. Also, I play golf with the handicap of 18, so I am not a treat to Tiger, but I enjoy it enough to go back again and again after terrible rounds.
Besides work and sports, I like travelling and learning cultures on a way, do some dining and wining and always think “could I live here?” Besides Chamonix, I consider California, Finland and UK as “my homes”. Mexican food in Pasadena, Sunday brunch in Notting Hill and barbeque by the lake in Tampere – all good.
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