Matti Liski joins Columbia Road

Hi Matti, How did you get good at what you do?

By trying new things, making mistakes and learning from them! Although I have a degree in Business Administration, most of what I know now has come from hours and hours of working with intelligent people while solving interesting problems. Most of my experience comes from having challenges to resolve without the necessary tools, experts’ advice or set processes to solve them easily. Therefore, my team and I usually took it on ourselves to learn new things to grow the business. I want to take this opportunity to give recognition to my former managers who made this possible – you know who you are! :)

Where have you earned your spurs?

I spent over a decade working at Elisa, where I had the chance to lead digital sales transformation in practice, wearing a number of hats ranging from product owner to Head of eCommerce. We were also an early adopter of the growth hacking approach to digital sales, setting up the first pilot at Elisa in 2015.

Further into my career I focused more on strategic work with topics such as omnichannel, digitalisation, disruptions and also giving presentations about ecommerce and growth hacking at a number of large Finnish corporations. However, I am still very eager and able to dive deep into any webshop and ideate experiments for improving conversion rates.

Why Columbia Road?

Consulting has always been a career move that I wanted to explore. I have worked with some of Columbia Road’s fine roadies in the past, so when I started to seriously consider a possible future in consulting, Columbia Road felt like the perfect place to be.

Over time I have grown to appreciate the cultural and societal aspects of any company I work for – and these are some of the key things about Columbia Road that piqued my interest. It also helps that it’s usually a ton of fun when you spend time with colleagues here. Ultimately, if I had to name one thing, it would be the sharp focus on improving the business of the customers, as it is important for me to see the impact that my work has.

Eero, what will make our clients love Matti?

"Customers of ours love Matti because of his caring attitude and people focused approach. He has experience in a wide variety of areas and can draw on these to deliver a great service. Matti can think on his feet and can handle a lot of things at once, a skill that is often useful. He is a pleasure to work with and his enthusiasm is clear to see!" says Eero Martela, General Manager at Columbia Road.

What makes your heart beat a little faster?

“I have a passion for all sorts of things, including 90s rap music, cooking, walking by the Helsinki seafront and video games. As the work tends to require a lot of concentration, I find it super satisfying to “forget” about all work related things for a moment and to focus on winning a game of Civ 6 or cooking the perfect ragú. Sometimes I do a similar thing at work – get in the “zone” where I clear my mind of everything else and just focus on the task at hand,” says Matti.

How would you fancy working alongside Matti at Columbia Road? We're constantly looking for new nice and skilful people to join our crew! Take a peek at our open positions 👇