Pekka Kantola – “Do not settle for the first, obvious solution to the problem”

Solved’s Expert of the Week Pekka Kantola says that his passion is to create profitable and sustainable green business. Lately, he has been working with LED-based illumination and water purification companies.

“I feel my nature is a problem-solver, so working out challenges comes quite easy to me and the challenge itself motivates me. I have always been interested in the nature surrounding me and the technology in connection with it. Meaning, if the technology can provide any solution to any help us to observe better or improve our environment, let’s use it.”

Pekka has operated more than 20 years in small and medium-sized companies, and he knows well pulp and paper, iron and steel and ICT industries. Pekka’s tasks have covered almost everything in SME companies, including engineering tasks, project management, sales and marketing, customer relationships, HR, IT and R&D administration, steering group work and strategical planning and operations in executive level.

He highlights that you need to think “out-of-the-box” – and try to find root causes and the origin of the problem.

“Do not settle for the first, obvious solution to the problem. There are typically a bunch of solutions to solve the problem, and I always prefer to find the sustainable one. There is a huge difference between terms ‘correction’ and ‘improvement’ in the context of problem-solving.”