The story of Jaakko Karhumaa, CEO of Mallow

I had a 25 year career for large corporations, which I had really enjoyed for time being! The time came across eventually thinking, what would be next – what would on the other hand allow me to develop myself and learn a different angle to the business, and also, have fun while doing it. Starting a business was something I had been thinking about for some time, but it took until this to make the final decision. 

Getting together with Reaktor was basically a question of good timing and good existing connections. Reaktor was at the time recognizing growth in the market and their accounts for Microsoft cloud, and this was of course also demand for services. It was then a question of figuring out the founding team with relevant capabilities and interest to build core team to build on. I like to refer to this as a band and Reaktor being the record company. 

Figuring out the roles among the founding members was not a big issue. We agreed that we actually can´t have strictly squared roles, but it would require us all to work together and shift and balance roles as required. As I was coming from a previous role as Managing Director, the CEO role was seen naturally to land on me.

Personally, my biggest driver in starting with Mallow was not the CEO role itself but the founding of the new company and to see and do it from the scratch. Having no previous experience from founder perspective, it was essential feeling to have Reaktor in the background. We were fully committed and definitely very optimistic, but still, it was great to have a parent company in the background. We never took things granted, but after the first full fiscal year, the second year in operation, we really felt that yes, this is going somewhere!

The company was founded at time of Covid, so we were totally remote as we started. It was soon discovered as we hired people, that everybody really wants to have an office and see people for a change. So when most companies were downsizing their offices or giving up on having actual offices, our people pointed this to be substantial. In fact that lead to becoming the core culture of Mallow – people who join Mallow value highly a level of community and the opportunity to learn peer to peer, share thoughts and ideas, and to work on common projects and customer assignments.

The economic situation has not been highly favorable during our first four years of business. We have seen numerous companies go down, many being forced to perform layofs, and others shrinking. We have had moments of stress and short sight for the future, but basically two things: We have been very strict on focus. We have not panicked and sacrificed the focus on what we originally set up to do, and we feel that has been critical. That doesn’t mean that we wouldn´t have questioned it, but we haven´t jumped on every occasion. Second – we have been very blessed and lucky to have great customer base, who has trusted on us and we are happy to serve them on best of our ability.

From my personal experience, the key thing is always to find the right people around you and allow people to be the best they can. From leadership perspective I am more on the favor of allowing individuals and teams to find the best ways to deliver and to come up with great ideas on building new ways to operate, rather than defining super strict goals and step by step follow-up. That’s not to say goals have to be clear, but in our business we rely on strong capabilities, brave soul and mind to make good decisions on customer behalf. Also, people are not the same, we are all wired differently. Having a company culture supports different people to fit in and leverage the best practices in place.

I feel that one the most important skills is ability to simplify complex things and that way visualize the vision where the company is going. Also, people still want to see a persons leading the way. Gaining the leadership position in the eyes of the people, can be done through authorization or hierarchy, but I don’t believe in that. Personally, I think you build your position by allowing people to succeed in the job and helping others to succeed through that. And act fast – make the decisions rather sooner than later!

One of the hardest things is to live in the uncertainty. You are not able to control things that affect the market, how individuals perform, what your customers or competitors do. And still, you are measured on the success which is result of all of this. Things don´t always or even usually go as planned. You must trust on the decision you and your team has done, execute, and be prepared to fail and correct as well. 

At the same time, the challenging part is what makes the CEO work fun as well. The next day is never the same. You can operate in many fields. Especially when your company is small, your daily activities have variance more than ever. From meeting customers, recruiting new people, rewarding your team, to organizing the office – it can vary. From me it  requires plenty of discipline to make sure you focus on things that matter! But still you must ensure there is Coke and Pepsi in the fridge and the coffee is brewing. Otherwise everything else is for nothing. 

Well, as with all the companies we are looking to grow. I was expecting us to grow faster, but the last year was very challenging for many companies in the market. We still managed to grow, but not as much as we would have expected. For Mallow it is about achieving the critical mass both headcount and loyal customers. And what about the brand recognition, how to put Mallow in the map so that customers would actually know us! We expect to keep on growing, and our path is more on the steady growth than aggressive growth, which of course can change pending on how the market evolves. I feel the growth, headcount growth especially for us, is critical for our culture and creates the vibe our people like. And while growing, the most critical aspect is our people, we must keep our promise to our employees on the journey to make Mallow the best place for cloud consultant to grow!