Hello, I'm Ilkka H.

I help companies to boost business performance with better use of data and AI. My services link your business needs to what digital transformation and latest technologies can offer. However it is not only about the technology, but transformation of your organisation, processes and roles to benefit the opportunities AI offers. I have extensive experience in leading change in organisations and having worked in leadership roles in various leading companies, I know well how organisations and teams work and how best help them with the change. I bridge the business and technical sides being able to speak fluently both languages, and thus being ideally placed to bring concreate lasting improvements.

Details

Professional CategoryInformation Technology
Location
Years of Relevant Experience20+ years
Seniority LevelDirector
Consulting Rate (Hourly)200

Headline

Helping companies to transform business performance with data and AI

Experience

CEO, CTO and Founder

Relevant/Notable employerBe Customer SmartFebruary 2016 - Current• Launched a customer experience management solution to quantify how much each customer journey touchpoint impacts both the sales and the customer satisfaction • General company management, budgeting, business planning and hired and managed team members (5) • Gathered product requirements and feature ideas from potential customers, created release plans and lead the R&D team and the developer subcontractors while also coding key algorithms • Closed key deals and delivered AI solutions to: o Banking: UBS, OCBC o Travel: MSC Cruises, Hyatt, Shangri La o Retail: SOK o Energy: Future Energy, Pohjois-Karjalan Sähkö, Vantaan Energia

Generative AI Project Leader and Consultant

Relevant/Notable employerSwisscom DirectoriesJanuary 2025 - April 2025• Led a project to fill in missing business listings data using Generative AI search and enrich business detail pages with AI generated content to attract more visitors, improve Google search rankings and conversion • Designed the concept based on the business requirements and architecture and led the engineering teams (10 employees) • Set up an automatic quality assurance, compliance management solution and metrics using latest AI tools

Generative AI Project Leader

ConfidentalMarch 2024 - September 2024• Designed and consulted on the implementation of a virtual customer service agent to handle automatically customer enquiries and booking changes over chat using Llama large language model, RAG vector data base including tuning the models, safeguards and continuous monitoring running in Azure cloud • Management of various project streams including technical, content, communication and marketing • The solution handles up to 90% of the requests automatically end-to-end with high customer satisfaction

Guest Lecturer - AI in the Hospitality Industry

Glion Institute of Higher EducationApril 2025 - CurrentVisiting lecturer on AI and data analytics in the luxury travel industry

Interim Head of Data-driven Decision-making Programme

Relevant/Notable employerEnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg May 2023 - January 2024• Responsible for the transformation of EnBW B2C sales into an agile data-driven organisation (“Build-Measure-Learn”) – reporting to the Head of Digital Capabilities • Increased the use of AI and data analytics in churn prevention, next best action, intent recognition… • Quantified the business impact of each capability and investment and ensuring that all the contribution of all the activities, journeys and processes can be reliably measured • Led the attribution of monetary benefits to solutions and prioritisation based on expected ROI • Coached the business teams to use data and AI in daily decision making

Interim Head of Data and Personalisation

Relevant/Notable employerSwisscomJuly 2022 - January 2023• Responsible for the daily operations and for the development of the Swisscom B2C e-sales and e-care analytics function reporting to the Head of Digital Channels • Led a team of 8 performance managers focusing on web analytics, BI, AI, conversion rate optimisation and dynamic experience personalisation • Agile Product Owner for e-commerce personalisation and conversion optimisation • Identified the key short comings and transformed the team from a reactive disconnected team to a proactive consultative one working closely with business stakeholders to continuously improve the conversion rates • Set up personalisation using Adobe Target and ML across omnichannel touchpoints to boost the sales • Lead fixing data quality issues and joined disconnected data pools to form end-2-end understanding of customer journeys and intentions allowing realistic attribution and marketing ROI calculations • Consulted Swisscom on the industry best analytics practises for digital journeys covering data collected, tools used, and organisation set up • Inducted the new permanent team lead and provided a detailed plan for further development

Interim Head of the Data Analytics

Relevant/Notable employerQualcommJune 2021 - January 2022• Responsible for the production data engineering and analytics function in the global manufacturing IT organisation reporting the SAP and analytics senior director • Led a team of 7 production data analytics managers in Germany and in India • The team was accountable for the quality of the data collected across the various production steps and for the insights derived from the analytics tools so both product quality and yield could be optimised • Programme management of several initiatives including machine learning and cloud migration • Managed relationships with business users, suppliers, subcontractors ensuring agreed SLAs were met and handled escalations • Resolved issues in the team by active coaching and by redesigning the individual responsibilities • Fixed the incident handling process internally and with key IT partners by analysing the critical risk areas, ensured 24/7 availability competent resources and upgraded several risk prone IT components • Inducted the newly hired permanent team lead

Independent Management & AI Technology Consultant

IndependentDecember 2013 - February 2016• Headed consulting assignments on how to use data and AI to improve business performance and customer experience • Created customised AI models to understand, to predict and to influence customer behaviour • Customers included: SaaS: OpusCapita, F-Secure Telecom: Orange, Swisscom Municipalities: City of Helsinki • Conceptualised and created a SaaS information service for tourism sector using data from mobile networks, Internet and credit cards providing details of visitor numbers, origins, dwell times, spend and likes

Vice President Analytics

Relevant/Notable employerComptelOctober 2010 - November 2013• Responsible for the AI solution business in the MEA region covering sales, delivery and consulting reporting to the region SVP – won the company’s first customer in globally • Headed a team of 8 including data scientist, consultants, project managers and sales managers • Developed the partner channel with Comptel's strategic partners including IBM, Oracle, HP, Cisco, Tech Mahindra, Accenture - gained the first deal with Nokia • Sold and delivered BI and predictive analytics use cases such as churn prediction, churn prevention, best next product, demographics and interest segmentation, new customer acquisition, upsell, revenue boost, fraud detection, real time customer experience management and network optimization – decreased churn by 13% and increased revenue per touch by 300% by choosing the right customers to target

Business Development Director

Relevant/Notable employerNokiaOctober 1998 - August 2010Various sales leadership, business development and organisational transformation leadership roles.

Industry

Technology, Information and Media
Utilities

Specific Jurisdictions That I'm Qualified In or Can Cover

Finland

Sweden

Germany

Switzerland

Austria

Denmark

Russia

United Kingdom

United Arab Emirates

Language(s)

English
Finnish
French
German
Russian
Swedish