Marko Ahtisaari (born 6 February 1969 in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

) is a Finnish technology entrepreneur and musician. Ahtisaari has been

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and co-founder of two technology companies: Dopplr (acquired by Nokia in 2009) and Sync Project (acquired by Bose in 2018). After the acquisition of Dopplr, Ahtisaari was executive vice president of Design at Nokia and later a Director's Fellow at the MIT Media Lab. He is a composer, bassist and singer in the band Construction.

Early life

Marko Ahtisaari is the son of

Martti Ahtisaari Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (, 23 June 1937 – 16 October 2023) was a Finnish politician, the tenth president of Finland, from 1994 to 2000, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediation, mediator noted for his inte ...

, a former UN diplomat and

President of Finland The president of the Republic of Finland (; ) is the head of state of Finland. The incumbent president is Alexander Stubb, since 1 March 2024. He was elected president for the first time in 2024 Finnish presidential election, 2024. The presi ...

, and Eeva Ahtisaari, the former First Lady of Finland. He attended

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, where he studied philosophy, economics and music.

Work

Ahtisaari's business career started at a new media company Satama Interactive in 1998. In 2002 Ahtisaari left the company to join its biggest client,

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

. He was appointed Director of Design strategy in 2005. In 2006, he left Nokia and joined his former boss, Nokia CEO Pekka Ala-Pietilä to start an advertisement-supported mobile network Blyk. In 2007, Ahtisaari became the founding investor and CEO of online business travel startup Dopplr, which was acquired by

in 2009. Between February 2009 September 2013 Ahtisaari was Head of Product Design at Nokia. In January 2012, he was appointed as a member of the Nokia leadership team. Ahtisaari announced his resignation from Nokia when Microsoft acquired Nokia's devices business in September 2013. Ahtisaari is co-editor with Laura Houseley of Out of the Blue: The Essence and Ambition of Finnish Design (Gestalten 2014) a survey of Finnish Design. Ahtisaari and Finnish entrepreneur and journalist Jaakko Tapaninen co-authored the book 10x Finland (Teos 2015) for the Finnish-speaking audience on the impact of digitalisation on a country like Finland. The book is based on original interviews with international persons of interest in technology and media including Joi Ito, Stefana Broadbent, Tyler Brule, danah boyd, Joshua Cooper Ramo, and Bret Easton Ellis. In its review the Finnish National daily Helsingin Sanomat called 10x Finland "one of the most interesting books written in Finnish on the effects of digitalisation." Ahtisaari contributed the essay "Intelligent Travel" to the

Freesouls ''FREESOULS: Captured and Released by Joi Ito'' is a book by Joi Ito featuring 296 photographic portraits of members of the free culture movement. The project began in 2007 as way for Ito to freely distribute, through a Creative Commons Attrib ...

project.

Music

Ahtisaari's band Skizm - together with percussionist Mauro Refosco, trumpetist

Michael Leonhart Michael Leonhart (born April 21, 1974) is an American jazz trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist. Solo career In 1992 Leonhart was honored with the first Grammy Award for outstanding high school musician in the US (he attended Fiorello H. LaGuardi ...

, bassist Dan Cooper, singer Carolyn Kelley, and drummer Tobias Gebb - received a NARAS Grammy Showcase Award for new artists.

References

External links

*http://ahtisaari.typepad.com/about.html *http://ahtisaari.typepad.com/moia/2005/12/music_for_airpl.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahtisaari, Marko 1969 births Living people Musicians from Helsinki Finnish people of Norwegian descent Finnish male musicians Nokia people Columbia College (New York) alumni Children of presidents of Finland Finnish chief executives