Mika Tanner has entered as the new CEO for Trailmaker. Tanner served previously as Managing Director of SAP Finland, and as CEO of Bilot Oyj, where he successfully led the company through strong growth and an IPO. Tanner will take over the operational leadership from Managing Partner Heikki Manninen, who will continue to work closely with clients and to advance Trailmaker’s strategic development.
As CEO, Tanner will focus on strengthening the company’s growth, international scalability, and impact in supporting organizations through complex strategic change. This aligns with Trailmaker’s next phase of development as the company enters a new era of growth driven by its best-in-class solution for strategic leadership: The software-enabled Strategic Leadership System (SLS) that contains best practices, methods and tools for leading strategic change.
“Mika is the right person to lead us in this new era of Trailmaker where we transform from a consultancy house to a system provider”, Manninen says.
Trailmaker’s story began in 2012, when the founders discovered a common denominator to why so many businesses fail to achieve their potential.
“Business growth is often constrained when the execution of strategic change falls short. It’s not due to poor strategies or the people involved, but to how the strategy is led. Companies have great systems for running and optimizing their operations, but they often end up using daily business practices for leading strategic change as well. That is like taking a squash racket to a golf course”, Manninen explains.
With decades of combined experience in leading and scaling enterprise-sized businesses, Manninen and the other founders developed a methodology for fast, successful strategy execution. During the last few years, Trailmaker has been translating the insights gained from over 400 client engagements into the SLS, which is already utilized by multinational corporations and other companies aiming for strategic change.
During his time at SAP Finland, Tanner led the organization through a transition to a cloud-based business, and at Bilot he successfully directed the company through strong growth and an IPO. Tanner says he joined Trailmaker at a pivotal moment, where his experience can help convert momentum into sustained growth.
“Executing and measuring strategic change remains a major challenge for business leaders. Trailmaker brings a highly relevant solution for organizations in Finland and across Europe. Scan the list of Finland’s largest companies or its biggest private equity houses, and you’ll see that many are already utilizing Trailmaker”, Tanner says.
Tanner is excited about the opportunity and sees that the company has a bright future ahead of it.
“I’m in it for the long run. My ambition is to make Trailmaker the natural partner of choice for strategic change. Trailmaker has quietly helped launch hundreds of strategic initiatives for years. Now it’s time to make it available to everyone.”
