Slush has appointed Eerika Savolainen as the company’s new CEO.
As the former COO, Savolainen will replace Miika Huttunen, who was in charge of Slush for the past two years. Mikko Mäntylä remains the company’s President, leading the content, key audiences and digital products.
Savolainen became part of the team in 2019 to work with strategic partnerships. In 2020, he led responses to the global pandemic and the online platform Node by Slush. She was appointed as Operations Director in 2021.
The latest event, which took place in December 2021, was a meeting of 8,800 people, with more than half of the audience comprised of the core customer groups: startup founders, operators and investors. Slush 2021 is stated to be one of the most customer-focused events of the past decade, rethinking the foundations of the team and what the future of a premium event will look like.
“It is now clear that a smaller and more curated event is working. In the 2010s, we focused on expansion and created a foundation for us to build on. Now, we call the 2020s an age of concentration – we focus on serving our core audience the best possible. We are working to bring together Europe’s most promising startups and the world’s most prestigious investors,” says Savolainen, and continues “As the ecosystem evolves, the challenges have moved to the later stages of a company’s lifecycle. We can help by choosing the best advice around topics such as recruitment, international expansion or product strategy.”
We wish Eerika the very best and looking forward to Slush 2022!!