Continuous learning is a prerequisite for moving forward in life and career. We constantly learn new things at the workplace, but we shouldn’t forget more formal studying. This is what Kari-Mikael Järvenpää, Vice President at K-Auto of Kesko, says.
Järvenpää has worked for the same employer, Kesko, throughout his career. He’s been happy with Kesko because the company has offered great opportunities to grow, develop, and regularly take on new responsibilities.
Järvenpää started at the company as a trainee. Now he is a Vice President and a member of the management team.
"I've been able to do almost everything here that can be done in the field of car sales," says Järvenpää.
"The company has a positive attitude towards studying and learning: it is understood that it is a win-win from both the employer's and the employee's point of view when people obtain good, new skills.”
Education that fits your situation
Järvenpää became interested in sales as a child. When he was in the first grades of elementary school, he dismantled bicycle parts and sold them in his neighborhood.
"My company has a positive attitude towards studying and learning."
After high school, he went to study economics.
Now he is studying in Aalto EE's Global Leader program, but the exact combination of studies has been tailored just for him.
Kari-Mikael Järvenpää on opiskellut Aalto EE:ssä muun muassa strategiaa, digitaalisia toimintamalleja ja taloutta.
In practice, it means that he has been able to cherry-pick: to complete exactly the modules and courses that best fit his own situation and seemed most important from the employer's point of view.
Aalto EE's goal is to support individuals in career transitions with flexible training solutions. This means a learning path tailored to the individual's needs can be made.
The courses and contents that best meet the needs of the individual are selected for the study unit. This may mean online courses, where these can be completed independently, as well as face-to-face education, in programs where you study together with people from other organizations.
Thanks to this approach, Järvenpää has been able to focus on the themes he wanted to focus on and where he felt he needed new skills during his studies.
At Aalto EE, he has completed modules dealing with, for example, strategy, digital operating models and financial matters. For Järvenpää, it was important that the studies could also be credited towards Executive MBA studies later.
The car industry is now in great turmoil. Järvenpää points out that the management of the industry must know how to make wise, strategic choices, which requires up-to-date knowledge and understanding of relevant themes.
Studying has helped, among other things, to structure, understand and take a stand regarding current issues.
Internationally high-level trainers and peer learning
When the opportunity to study something new comes up, it's worth taking it, Järvenpää encourages. It enriches your own career and brings new skills and experience.
Studying while working is demanding, but Aalto EE's trainings are designed to be completed specifically while working. And in the end, it's about individual days and evenings, says Järvenpää.
"People come from different backgrounds and business areas and have different experiences. It's really enriching."
The support of the employer in coordinating studies, work and the rest of life is of course important: when the employer trusts that the investment in learning is worth it, even if it takes time away from the actual work, every stakeholder has something to earn from you having time to learn.
While studying at Aalto EE, Järvenpää has been impressed by the international level of the trainers.
Networking plays an important role, and I have learned a lot from my fellow students. Those who follow a customized study path do not always study with the same people, but on the other hand, they get to know different people who go through different trainings.
"People come from different backgrounds and business areas and have different experiences. It's really enriching."
