Itella looks to international growth with CEO appointment

Finland’s Itella Group is looking to growth internationally with the appointment of its next president and chief executive officer, Heikki Malinen. Malinen will take over the postal operator when its current chief, Jukka Alho, retires on 11th December, 2012. Malinen is planning to start work for Itella on 1st November to allow a handover period.

The next Itella president has been the president and CEO of the global environment and energy industry consultancy Pöyry since 2008, stepping down in June 2012.

Previously, he was executive vice president of strategy and a member of the executive committee of international paper manufacturer UPM-Kymmene for two years from January 2006.

Malinen spent eight years from the end of the 1990s working in the United States, as UPM-Kymmene’s North America president for four years, and for consultancy McKinsey for three years. A graduate of the Helsinki School of Economics, he also has an MBA from Harvard.

Arto Hiltunen, chairman of Itella’s board, said Malinen’s long-term experience in “demanding” executive tasks gave him an “excellent foundation” to lead Itella as it faces up to declining traditional letter volumes.

“Mr Malinen’s experience in executive tasks of major international companies will support Itella’s success in its internationalisation and help us meet the challenges of the ever-tightening international competition,” said Hiltunen.

Challenges

Itella’s next president said the company had a “nationally significant” role in providing the basic mail, communication and logistics services, but that his ambitions were to pursue global growth.

“Digitalisation, ecommerce and globalisation provide Itella with interesting growth opportunities in Finland and abroad, while also involving challenges,” he said.

Malinen will be taking the reins of a company that made a EUR 16.4m loss in 2011, battling declining mail volumes and the potential of competition with the Finnish postal market open fully to competition from last year.

Letter volumes are currently dropping by around 3% year-on-year, while periodicals have seen volumes slip by up to 9% year-on-year. However, the company is seeing growth in parcel volumes.

In his final year as president, Alho has been leading a review of the business, which has seen Itella selling off printing business units in Denmark and Germany, while expanding its international parcels operations in the Baltic region and acquiring rail company VR Group’s groupage logistics business.