Summer Roadies 2020 edition

"But when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya, I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life"

Bryan Adams – Summer of '69

The summer of 2020 has certainly been different for all of us – but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep on challenging ourselves, experiencing new things, and making new memories! This is what our summer recruits', summer Roadies', last summer looked like.

Ps. Make sure to make your 2022 count – become a Roadie! The application period for Helsinki's Associate Program is now ongoing!

Tri Hoang | Metropolia University of Applied Science | Information Technology, Mobile Solutions

Why Columbia Road?

The first time I heard about Columbia Road was during my interview at the mother company, Futurice. After some conversations with Lauri Eloranta and Ilkka Rämö, I was hooked into the company vision: helping customers transform into digitalisation and boosting their growth. Also, the company’s core value is to always bring the most positive impact on clients’ business, which firmly aligned with mine. And the cherry on top is Columbia Road’s culture. My friend, Toan Thanh, has worked there since 2018, and said the company’s culture and people are awesome and I cannot agree more on that!

What did you learn during the summer?

When I started in June, I was one of the latest summer Roadies to join Columbia Road. During this time, I managed to learn and work with new technology stacks, how to communicate with clients, manage a projects’ budget, take ownership of my work, be a trusted consultant and become a better person in life. Sounds a bit much? Well, actually it is! Columbia Road has provided me with a great opportunity to learn all of those skills. The company’s flat hierarchy makes a huge contribution toward improving my skills. Here, I get to work directly with clients, make my own decisions in projects without getting into a bureaucracy mess! Even better, my mentor and colleagues are extremely supportive, full of knowledge and experiences, who helped me achieve great results during my first 4 months.

What are your plans for the future?

Becoming an even better consultant is one of my goals and continuing working for Columbia Road is such a great opportunity to achieve it. Besides working, I am planning to apply for Aalto’s Master degree, Computer Science, to further sharpen my skills. At the end of the day, I always strive to be a better version of myself.

Anything else on your mind?

I am very thankful for the support I have received from everyone when I took my first steps in Finland. In order to give back to the community, I have been teaching immigrants coding for free. It is such an honour, being able to contribute a little bit toward the society and luckily, I have Columbia Road behind my back, supporting with the Good Impact Program!

Sofia Koskelainen | Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business | Business Management

Why Columbia Road?

A couple of years back Columbia Road first caught my attention on social media. The company stood out from the crowd with their results-driven approach and their way of challenging the status quo of work, which resonated with me. I kept my eye on Columbia Road and later, I saw a perfect opening. Columbia Road’s unique company culture combined with nearly limitless learning opportunities felt like an exciting opportunity. So far, I had focused on my studies and worked in in-house roles, so I was also very curious to learn about consulting – I didn’t have to think twice about applying.

What did you learn during the summer?

So many things! I got to work on multiple projects during the summer and in addition to learning new technologies and tools, I’ve learned a bunch of things about consulting, different industries and digital sales. Besides those, I really enjoyed the way we work: seamlessly combining marketing, design and development aspects in projects, enabling learning new things outside of our own core competencies.

What are your plans for the future?

As I’ve already graduated, I’m thrilled to continue working full-time at Columbia Road. I’m looking forward to further advancing my skills around digital sales and consulting, and last but not least, all the adventures with my amazing colleagues, or ‘Roadies’ as we like to say!

Anything else on your mind?

Something that I can’t praise enough and what makes Columbia Road so special – the people. They are such talented professionals and so much fun to work with!

Aki Pöntinen | Aalto University, School of Business | Information and Service Management

Why Columbia Road?

I've been interested in working in the intersection of business and technology, and when I pondered about different ways to pursue my professional interests, the field of consulting started to feel appealing. In this kind of environment you get to see varying projects, work with plenty of different people and the learning curve is really steep.

In the tech consulting world, Columbia Road was definitely the most interesting company for me as Columbia Road is really business-driven, which fits my mentality. Challenging the old IT-driven approaches really reflected on my views about how technology is just a tool that should be used to fulfil the actual world’s needs. Columbia Road was taking part in interesting projects with interesting clients and I had heard great things about Columbia Road’s culture. On top of that, Columbia Road was on an impressive growth trajectory and I felt that I wanted to be a part of building this success story within the organisation.

In addition to working with really interesting topics, you get to do this with an awesome bunch of people. It’s the people who make Columbia Road a great place to be.

What did you learn during the summer?

The whole summer was a great learning journey for me, and a deep-dive into the consulting world and B2B sales. When you’re working in sales, you need to have a basic understanding of Columbia Road’s whole offering, which is really broad. I was shortly introduced to growth hacking, different ecommerce platforms and a large variety of different topics in which Columbia Road excels. Basically, every sales proposal I worked on expanded my understanding of digital business consulting’s different dimensions and the learning was really hands-on. At Columbia Road, you’ll get as many responsibilities as you’re willing to take.

I got the opportunity to work in a world-class sales team and I learned a lot from the people I worked with. I didn’t have much prior B2B sales experience and thus the learning curve was really steep. I worked both in sales development and sales teams, which gave me a great view on how the whole B2B sales process can be managed in an efficient and optimal way.

What are your plans for the future?

I’m currently starting to work on my master’s thesis and finishing my studies, after which I’ll happily continue to work for Columbia Road. I’m aiming to learn more about all of Columbia Road’s competences as well as gain more experience in consultative B2B sales. I believe I won’t stop learning and there’s great mobility within the company if I become interested in a new role at some point. I’ve been interested in product management, so perhaps working as a Growth Owner could be something to do at Columbia Road in the future :)

Anything else on your mind?

I was aware that Columbia Road’s culture was great even before I started working in the company, but from the first day onwards I realised how great the company environment is in practice. People are super friendly and during my first weeks so many people offered their help with any challenges I had. In addition to people being really professional and talented in their tasks, it was always super nice to chat with people about a variety of topics outside the scope of work, like biking, food, movies, music, etc. Pretty much anything between earth and heaven. People bring their personalities to work, which is great.

My summer overall:

Interesting work + Great colleagues = Awesomeness!

Tuomas Kontola | Aalto University, School of Science | Computer Science

Why Columbia Road?

I had heard a lot of good things from my friends who already worked at Columbia Road. I had also been on a few excursions to their office. The working environment and people seemed nice. I was looking for a company that had similar values to those that I have and the culture of Columbia Road kind of clicked, so I knew I needed to apply!

What did you learn during the summer?

I learned a lot about remote working. That may not come as a surprise, since this is quite new for everybody. I learned how teams work in remote environments and how to get the work done efficiently remotely.

What are your plans for the future?

I plan to stay with Columbia Road for while now. The work I do is great and it’s the work I would anyway do when I graduate from Aalto. My future plans revolve around IT, software development, and people. Columbia Road seems like the best mix of these. Here I can work on the things I am truly interested in.

Anything else on your mind?

This has possibly been the most bizarre summer job experience so far due to corona. I have probably met more people online than in person. The onboarding particularly felt very unusual because everything was remote. However, I must say Columbia Road was quick to adapt to the new situation. Online "fikas" (Swedish coffee break concept) and other shared online events started popping up, which made it easier to feel connected with colleagues. Fortunately, the office started to open up again during the summer, so I could actually meet people and get to know them in person.

Feeling inspired? Apply now and work alongside these amazing Roadies! Gear up your career, learn new skills, and have a memorable summer with nice colleagues!