Spinnova’s co-founder and Chair of the Board also takes over the position of CEO

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 03/21/2025 at 07:10 am EET

Spinnova announced yesterday that the company’s Board of Directors has appointed Janne Poranen as CEO effective March 20, 2025.  Janne Poranen will be responsible for all Spinnova Group businesses and for leading the Management Team. He will also continue as the Chair of the Board. Poranen, the co-founder of the company, was the CEO of Spinnova in 2014-2022 and has been the Chair of the Board since 2022.

Former CEO Tuomas Oijala continues supporting the new CEO with the strategy work. He will leave at the latest on September 12, 2025 as announced earlier. Due to the current development stage and special circumstances of Spinnova, the company deviates from recommendation number 21 of the Corporate Governance Code 2025, which concerns the separation of the roles of the CEO and Chair of the Board.

We expected Spinnova to recruit a new CEO to replace Tuomas Oijala quickly from within the company, so we feel the news was well expected. We also consider the decision logical, as the company has no time to lose looking for a new CEO, considering the acute need to renew the strategy (our previous update is available here), and thanks to his background, Poranen knows Spinnova thoroughly. The choice is also cost-effective, as in addition to board management, Poranen has worked on strategic projects at Spinnova. In our opinion, no conclusions can be drawn at this stage regarding the direction of the strategic choices facing the company based on the CEO selection. We commented on Spinnova’s change of CEO last week here.