Markus Vartiovaara
Director, Business Transformation
OP Corporate Bank
Markus Vartiovaara has a career in the management of large corporations, such as OP Financial Group, Telia, Nasdaq and Euroclear Finland. His past responsibilities include business management, account management, IT and product development, program management and ICT strategy. He is currently accountable for the agile transformation in OP Corporate Bank.
Markus has 20 years of experience in both theory and practice. He spent a year in Saudi Arabia managing the delivery of a stock exchange system. In Telia he was responsible for the group’s project management methodology and building project culture in Nordics. He has managed various service and product portfolios with vendors and partners. In OP Corporate Bank he initiated and implemented the first SAFe trains.
Based on his experience, agility is vital for all successful businesses, but large corporations often struggle with siloed, bureaucratic and hierarchical organization. While agility is the norm in product development, business lines for sales, customer service and business operations have typically separate processes and way of working.
“In the end, business agility is about putting employees and customers to the spotlight.”, Markus summarizes. “I look forward to sharing our experiences that I hope encourage and inspire other companies on their agile journeys.”
Agile business transformation end-to-end
OP Financial Group is undergoing a significant change in terms of mindset and operating culture. Our transformation aims to improve employee experience, customer experience, and productivity.
What I believe makes the OP Corporate Bank’s transformation unique is the scope of the change. Our business areas, or tribes as we call them, are responsible for their customer journeys which cover not only product development but also sales and customer operations. The tribes are further organized into agile teams in all areas.
Based on my experience, agility can be implemented up to some point using common good practices but beyond that you must build your own culture and operating model. Our employees are part of the leadership creating a totally different corporate culture. My ambition is to encourage and inspire the audience by sharing our experiences related to e.g. business agility, culture, and leadership.