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When meeting someone new, Salla Vainio doesn’t introduce herself as a board professional. Instead, she calls herself a board artisan. ‘You never reach the finish line in board work – you’re always learning. I feel the same way about leadership. It’s a craft,’ she says.

Vainio is no stranger to boardrooms – her first board position was for the Student Union of the Helsinki School of Economics (KY) in 1990. Since then, she has served on numerous boards.

A few years ago, she was preparing to step away from full-time work. That’s when she got a call from Save the Children Finland. The then-chair of the board asked if she wanted to hear more about the world’s largest children’s rights organisation and an upcoming leadership change in its Finnish chapter. She certainly did, and since January 2023, Vainio has served as the board chair at Save the Children Finland.

Always a bit of an outlier

Vainio has worked in leadership roles across multiple industries. ‘I’ve stepped into five different industries from outside, with no prior experience in the field,’ she says. ‘I tend to end up in situations where I’m somehow an unlikely choice.’

Perhaps her unconventional path started early. She began primary school a year ahead of her peers. Later, when her family couldn’t afford to send her on a high school exchange year, 16-year old Salla walked into a bank and secured a loan of 15,000 Finnish marks.

Her courage to jump into new situations is something she partly attributes to her time at business school – and especially its student union. In her second year, she joined KY’s board and was elected chair the following year. At 21, she was the youngest chair ever on the KY board – a record she may still hold.

By 33, she was leading an engineering team in the US – the only woman, the only non-engineer, and the youngest in the group. Later, from 2014 to 2018, she was the first non-lawyer to serve as CEO of the law firm Fondia.

A hidden treasure

Her time in the student union delayed her international business studies, but it gave her something invaluable: a circle of friends who, over the years, have become an extended family – complete with many godchildren.

‘Some might call it a network, but to me, they are dear friends.’

KY provided Vainio with a safe environment to practice leadership. It was a forgiving space where she could make mistakes, ones that might have caused major problems in the corporate world. ‘At KY, I learned how to work with people, organise, and manage projects. You can’t pick up those skills just by reading a book. And back then, I had no idea how valuable they would be,’ she says.

Even today, she draws on those lessons. ‘Thirty-five years later, I’m still tapping into the same treasure.’

The fixer

Of course, her formal education also prepared her for working life. Her studies in finance and accounting were especially valuable in giving her the tools to survive the first few years after graduation.

After four years in international consulting, she moved to Sonera, then to Silicon Valley for a role at Sonera’s US division. Later, she transitioned to a startup that had spun off from Sonera.

‘In the US, I ended up in sales for the first time, which terrified me,’ she says. ‘When our company was acquired, I suddenly found myself as the regional sales director, leading offices in North and South America. It was quite a situation.’

As a young female leader, she often felt under extra scrutiny. And the companies she joined were often in unusual situations, too. There could be some kind of transition happening – one that led them to seek her help.

‘It wasn’t always a crisis, but there was a need for change. And when they wondered how to “clean up the mess”, they hired me – probably because I don’t know how to say no,’ she laughs. In the same breath, she jokingly calls herself the corporate janitor.

‘It’s common for women to be hired as CEOs to clean up the mess left behind by their predecessors. There are even studies on this,’ she says.

‘I’ve often been brought in to fix things,’ she continues, citing examples where pricing hadn’t been reviewed in years, product development was stagnating, or a company had just lost its market leadership.

Of course, she’s done more than just cleaning up. As CEO of Fondia, she led the company through its IPO. When the law firm listed on the First North market for growth companies, Vainio became only the second woman in Finland to take a company public as CEO. The first was Kirsti Paakkanen of Marimekko.

Speaking up

Vainio has spent most of her career as a CEO – 16 years in total – leading three companies: Sanoma Pro, Fondia, and Marketing Clinic.

She’s quick to emphasise that she hasn’t achieved anything alone. ‘I’ve never felt like I was doing things by myself. It’s nonsense to say that CEOs are alone.’

For a CEO, the executive team is a crucial partner. ‘I’ve been surrounded by fantastic people. You can’t fail when your leadership team understands the industry and knows what they’re doing.’

She’s also had great bosses. Among them, she highlights Pekka Harju, who recruited her to Ilta-Sanomat to lead media sales.

‘It was incredibly bold to hire someone from the US whom nobody knew and who had zero experience in media sales,’ she says. She also appreciates how demanding Harju was. ‘We argued nearly every month. I was incredibly sharp-edged, and he took the time to smooth out those edges.’

Throughout her career, Vainio has held onto a principle she learned at McKinsey right after graduating: the obligation to dissent – the duty to voice disagreement. That’s why the first organisation she ever donated to was Amnesty International. ‘I gave them money to support the right to dissent.’

Better Business, Better Society

These days, fundraising features prominently in her interests – especially now that she volunteers in the world’s largest children’s rights organisation, Save the Children. She’s particularly drawn to the organisation’s domestic and global reach and its commitment to ensuring that aid reaches those in need as effectively as possible.

As a self-proclaimed board artisan, she knows she’s fortunate to be able to use her time and expertise for good. And when it comes to making the world a better place, she still draws on the same toolkit she built during her student years. Or perhaps, deep down, she’s still that exceptional 16-year old who took out a loan for her own future.

‘A welfare society doesn’t function unless we create more profitable, productive, and growing businesses,’ she says. ‘Even as a student, I could feel the excitement around me – the drive to take action and create something valuable to share.’

The Aalto University School of Business’s current motto, Better Business – Better Society, deeply resonates with Vainio. ‘It’s inspiring, like a call to action: if you truly want to change the world, this is the place to be.’

Also:

• A lifelong history enthusiast, especially fascinated by the early medieval period. ‘I must have been a Celt in a past life,’ she says, as her historian’s heart belongs to England, Scotland and Ireland.
• A bon vivant. ‘I love lounging on the sofa, reading history books and sipping white wine.’
• A passionate royalist with near-encyclopedic knowledge of the British monarchy. Can tell you something about every British monarch since William the Conqueror. Subscribes to Majesty magazine and eagerly reads second-hand Svensk Damtidning issues. Keeps her Swedish board colleagues up to date on royal news.

Text: Tiiu Pohjolainen 
Photos: Akseli Valmunen

This article has been published in the (issuu.com), May 2025.