Nordic Business Group was founded in December 2008 by Hans-Peter Siefen and Jyri Lindén. The company operated until November 2011 under the name Finnish Community of Entrepreneurship.

Since 2012, Nordic Business Forum Oy has been a subsidiary company of Nordic Business Group. The other subsidiary of Nordic Business Group is Nordic Business Investments Oy, which concentrates on real estate development.

Nordic Business Forum Oy’s revenue in 2016 reached 6.13 M€ while the revenue of the whole group was 15.0 M€. In January 2013, a professional board of directors was organized to support the implementation of the company’s ambitious growth and internationalization strategy.

The first Nordic Business Forum was organized in 2010 and over the years the annual main event has grown to be one of the most significant business seminars in the world. Our team includes 22 full-time employees. We have offices in Jyväskylä and Helsinki in Finland, in Tallinn, Estonia, and Stockholm, Sweden. In addition, we have one full-time representative in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Company mission & goal

We believe that inspiring and equipping business leaders who want to make the world a better place is the single most effective way in which we can make an effect on the whole society at large.

Back in 2011, Nordic Business Forum set a 10-year goal of developing the annual main event into the most noteworthy business seminar in the world. Step by step we are pursuing to reach that goal by 2021.

Our values

Delivering value

It is very important to us to keep in mind why we do what we do every day. That is why we pursue to deliver value in everything we do. With every blog post or email we write, or an event or a meeting we hold, we aspire to identify what is the value we’re giving to our clients and other stakeholders.

Entrepreneurial mindset

We aim to encourage entrepreneurial mindset among organizations and people. We believe that entrepreneurship keeps the societies going and entrepreneurial mindset keeps the companies going. People with an entrepreneurial mindset are life-long learners who have the eagerness for personal development.

Fair deals

Our goal is to offer unique training experiences at reasonable prices.

Creating enriching interaction

We support open collaboration and positive relationships and pursue to create a healthy and enriching environment for networking in our events.

Cross-generational thinking

According to cross-generational thinking, we didn’t inherit this world from our parents, we merely lease it from our children. This also applies to our way of doing responsible business.

CEO

Aslak de Silva

CEO

Aslak de Silva is Nordic Business Forum CEO.

Founders

Hans-Peter Siefen

Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board

Hans-Peter Siefen is Nordic Business Forum co-founder, former CEO, and a major owner together with Jyri Lindén.

Jyri Lindén

Co-Founder, Member of the Board

Jyri Lindén is Nordic Business Forum co-founder and a major owner together with Hans-Peter Siefen.

Board of Directors

Petteri Kilpinen

Member of the Board

Petteri Kilpinen is the former CEO of Rainmaker Group Ltd and GTW Group. He is the Chairman of the Board of Lataamo Group and a board member at Aava Medical Center and HJK Helsinki.

Alf Rehn

Member of the Board

Alf Rehn is a management professor in Åbo Akademi. In 2009 and 2011 Rehn was listed on the international Thinkers 50 Guru Radar becoming the only Finn ever included on the list. Rehn is one of most requested Finnish lecturers.

Ari-Pekka Salovaara

Member of the Board

Ari-Pekka Salovaara is an angel investor and the managing director of Visma Solutions Oy. Salovaara has done 10+ direct/indirect angel investments including Paytrail, MariaDB, DealDash and MOI mobile operator, and he is a board member at Miradore Oy, Surveypal Oy, and Movenium Oy.

Susanne Najafi

Member of the Board

Susanne Najafi is a serial tech entrepreneur, investor, and founding partner of Venture Capital firm BackingMinds. She has also founded Eleven, one of Nordics largest e-commerce companies within beauty care, of which she also was the CEO.

Milestones

DEC 2008	Nordic Business Group is founded in December 2008 by Hans-Peter Siefen and Jyri Lindén. The company operated until November 2011 under the name Finnish Community of Entrepreneurship.
NOV 2009	First evening seminar is organized. In the beginning, the company organizes small evening seminars with local speakers and less than 100 attendees.
AUG 2010	The team starts growing and the first team members are welcomed to the team!
OCT 2010	Our first ever annual Nordic Business Forum is organized. The name of the event is Weekend Seminar.
MAY 2011	The first Business Summit is held in Jyväskylä.
SEPT - OCT 2011	Nordic Business Forum 2011 – Strength from Responsible Choices. The first international speakers Al Gore and Les Brown also onboard.
SEPT 2012	Nordic Business Forum 2012 – GROWTH. Speakers include Brian Tracy, Daniel Pink, and Sir Richard Branson.
NOV 2012	Priit Liiv, the first international full-time employee joins the team. New office in Tallinn, Estonia is opened.
JAN 2013	A professional board of directors is organized to support the implementation of the company’s ambitious growth and internationalization strategy.
SEPT 2013	Nordic Business Forum 2013 – LEADERSHIP. The scope of international speakers grows. Malcolm Gladwell, Vijay Govindarajan, Lynda Gratton, Jimmy Wales, Tom Peters, and Jack Welch among the speakers.
OCT 2013	The first event is organized outside Finland: Sales Mastery Day with Brian Tracy, +630 participants in Tallinn, Estonia.
OCT 2014	Nordic Business Forum 2014 – FORWARD. Live stream of the event is available for the first time. Speakers include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Collins, and Sir Alex Ferguson.
OCT 2015	Nordic Business Forum 2015 – IMPACT. Live stream doubles the audience of Nordic Business Forum. Speakers include Ben Bernanke, John C. Maxwell, Arianna Huffington, Garry Kasparov, and Simon Sinek.
FEB 2016	The first intensive training program Bootcamp for Business Growth begins.
APR 2016	The first Nordic Business Forum SWEDEN is launched.
OCT 2016	Nordic Business Forum 2016 – ADVANTAGE. Live stream triples the audience of Nordic Business Forum. Speakers include Ed Catmull, Tony Hawk, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Dick Costolo.
JAN 2017	Nordic Business Forum Sweden 2017 was our first sister event in Stockholm, Sweden with nearly 1,000 business executives. Speakers include Andre Agassi, Linda Liukas, Kjell A. Nordström, Sheila Heen, Chip Conley, and Chad Hurley.
OCT 2017	Nordic Business Forum 2017 gathering together 7,500 CEOs, top executives, and entrepreneurs from over 40 countries. Speakers included Will Smith, Sir Richard Branson, Adam Grant, Rachel Botsman, Patrick Lencioni, and Nick Vujicic.
JAN 2018	Nordic Business Forum Norway 2018 was the first event in Norway. It hosted 550 business executives and entrepreneurs. Eric Ries, Alex Osterwalder, Seth Godin, Anita Krohn Traaseth, and Dan Toma.
JAN 2018	Nordic Business Forum Sweden 2018 was the second event of its kind. It hosted nearly 1,000 business executives and entrepreneurs from 19 countries. The keynote speaker of the event was the legendary Steve Wozniak.

Inspiration for Two

Nordic Business Forum will start sharing education and inspiration to students with a focus on developing countries. In 2017 the company will donate 100-150 live stream community licenses to universities and colleges in countries with low and medium Human Development Index.

Nordic Business Forum also donates tree plants in order to compensate the computational carbon footprint of the main event.