BCI Board Nominee Spotlight: Mikaiiro Laitinen MBCI
About the nominee
I spent the first two decades of my career in technology roles: software development, databases, and system management. While the technologies are now outdated, they provided insights into how different business sectors use technologies to achieve business objectives.
Next, I started a role in preparedness and resilience in a national context. I was responsible for building datacenters and establishing services for nationally critical organizations. This period provided me with insights into public-private partnership and security-of-supply. Establishing business continuity services practice in a big four company introduced me to strategic work with management teams and boards.
In my current role in a financial institute, I am gaining experience from a regulated operational resilience environment. I hold several volunteering positions like awards judge, membership assessor, and Vice-Lead of the BCI Finland chapter.
Prior board or governance experience
I led a four-year project with the Finnish Ministry of Finance as a senior management advisor between 2020 and 2023. The main objective was to create guidelines for digital security in the public administration. I drafted a document which became the government resolution of digital security. In addition, I contributed to drafting the related implementation plan, with the officials of the ministry.
Why serve on the BCI board?
I obtained my CBCI in late 2020 and MBCI in early 2021. I realised that there were interesting volunteering options to give back to the community from which I had already learned a lot. Every couple of years I have started another volunteering activity, and when the Board member election was announced, I decided that now is the perfect time to go all-in and apply for a position where I can apply the unique combination of my past technology experience, formal studies in mathematics and business administration, and passion to serve the community.
I also want to challenge myself by becoming a board member; I want to see how much more contribution I can make, to ensure that the voice of also the tiny areas and local communities is heard, and to learn new skills such as strategic leadership, and get a deeper understanding of business continuity and resilience practice in a global context.
What skills and experience do you bring to the BCI Board?
When I started in the National Emergency Supply Agency and later in its datacenter services subsidiary, there were only a couple of employees. This meant wearing several hats such as security manager, head of operations, procurement officer, and strategic planner simultaneously.
Additionally, I was appointed as a project director for NESA to supervise a datacenter building project. To manage all these roles successfully, I needed to understand the strategic objectives and what decisions needed to be made to achieve them.
On the other hand, as a senior business continuity and resilience advisor at KPMG I was constantly working with both executive and operative management teams, C-level directors, and board members. I always started by listening to the customer to understand where the pain-point was, and only after that forming a solution with my team and the customer.
As top-level leadership teams’ schedules were usually very busy, both spoken and written communication needed to convey the key message efficiently. My default communication method is compact and to-the-point rather than verbose. I sing in a chamber choir, and while this may not be on the top ten list of desired skills for a board member, I find it a prime example of collaboration. People from different age groups, genders, ethnic backgrounds, and skill sets need to work seamlessly together to create beautiful music. Much in the same way I work equally well with different kinds of people when we are working towards common goals and objectives.
