Tero's career story

"I joined CSC in fall 2006, after spending ten years at Nokia. I started as Development Manager in what was then the Computing Services group and in this work I was able to familiarize myself with one of CSC's key services as the new supercomputers were coming on stream. It was soon clear that CSC would also need a new data center in Espoo and as the Project Manager, I was given responsibility for the coordination of the project at the start of 2007. One could say that I had to jump in the deep end of the pool on a fairly short notice but with the help of competent CSC colleagues and partners, all these large projects were successfully completed.

In January 2009, my tasks changed and I was put in charge of the internal IT management group. Instead of dealing with supercomputers, I had a chance to learn more about the wonders of in-house data warehouses and the electronic work environment of CSC staff. The projects were in a smaller scale but they were more complex and suddenly we had the whole CSC staff as customers. Overnight, I found myself in a situation where everybody else in the company took huge interest in my performance. It was an interesting opportunity for personal development as my own doings were closely monitored almost on a daily basis and I also received plenty of feedback.

"All this is part of my development story and I have been able to use the lessons learned in those years in my current task. One should not dwell on one's failures forever."

Because of my background at Nokia, I often took a fairly straightforward approach to issues. This caused some turbulence at CSC, which is smaller company and has a more discussion-oriented corporate culture. In retrospect, one can say that there were great successes but that there were also decisions that should have involved more people so that better results would have been achieved. All this is part of my development story and I have been able to use the lessons learned in those years in my current task. One should not dwell on one's failures forever. Years later, you will hear about them at coffee breaks and staff parties but always in a good-humored way.

After four years at CSC, I was appointed head of the new ICT Platforms unit in October 2010. I had always dreamed of a situation where I would be dealing with matters on a slightly new abstraction level as part of my daily work, where I would be learning management team work and strategic work and where I would be in charge of development managers who are also in a supervisory position. Now this dream had come true.

All this means that I am now in charge of a unit that has nearly fifty in-depth experts and professionals in the field of technology. Our unit has prime responsibility for the maintenance and development of technological service platforms on which more extensive service systems for CSC customers are built.

"In other words, my main task is to ensure that there are people in my team that are smarter than me and know more about technologies, to set joint targets and to create the motivation to meet those targets, and to ensure that each team member is able to manage the multitude of challenges they are facing in their job."

In my own work, the focus is on interaction with people and over the years my technological skills have become somewhat outdated and I rarely need them anymore. In other words, my main task is to ensure that there are people in my team that are smarter than me and know more about technologies, to set joint targets and to create the motivation to meet those targets, and to ensure that each team member is able to manage the multitude of challenges they are facing in their job. With regard to my educational background, mathematics has never played a major role in my work and there has also been less need for computer science in recent years. At the same time, the usefulness of adult education science can never be overemphasized ;)

CSC offers a rich and extensive operational field where both experienced IT professionals and those at the start of their careers can find interesting personal challenges. Besides, they will have Finland's most competent ICT and science experts as their colleagues."