35
35 UNDER THE RISING STARS OF THE
PROFESSION
OLLI
VALIKANGAS
KPMG
TITLE: Managing Director,
Transactions & Restructuring
AWARD CATEGORY:
Strategy Consulting
AGE
32
At just 32
years old, Olli
Valikangas
already has 10 years under his belt
at KPMG. And what a decade it’s
been. Starting out in the UK in
2004, Valikangas played a lead role
in starting the firm’s Operations
Strategy and performance
improvement business, helping
drive growth from five members to
more than 100 in just five years.
While there, Valikangas focused
on developing performance improve-
ment modeling and analytics frame-
works for transactions and other cost-
optimization applications for multi-
billion dollar clients.
“Being a part of the growth of the
UK team while developing its Operations Strategy and performance-improvement business projected
my career development forward at a
rapid pace, and allowed me to develop the unique experience that I have
now been able to apply in the U.S.
practice,” he says.
Following his success in the UK,
Valikangas crossed the pond to establish KPMG’s U.S. performance-im-provement hub, where he oversees up
to three engagements simultaneously,
managing teams of up to 25 members.
It’s the members of his team he credits
for keeping him at his sharpest.
“The general hard work I contribute
to every project I have led or played
a role in, and striving to always raise
the bar for the services provided by
KPMG, have bolstered my professional success tremendously. However, the support of my team members,
who mirror my work ethic, has also
been invaluable through my career.”
Valikangas calls the Rising Stars
Award “a huge milestone.”
“That my work has been recognized with such a prestigious acknowledgment is extremely gratifying and has only added to the sense of
pride I have in what I do.” ★
TITLE:
JON
WIITA
IBM INTERACTIVE
Senior Strategy Consultant
AWARD CATEGORY:
Strategy Consulting
AGE
27
Jon Wiita
is leading
the charge
towards an agile scrum-based
consulting model. At just 27 years
of age, he’s already considered
an expert in end-to-end customer
experience design, and his clients
consistently praise him for synthesizing customer data into easy-to-understand personas and effectively turning co-created solutions
into actionable transformation and
implementation plans.
However, his real strength and true
thought leadership is in applying the
agile scrum development method
to traditional strategy consulting
engagements. He received IBM’s
Service Excellence Award in client
partnership and guidance for helping
a client new to developing customer-facing applications. Wiita has synthesized a method to manage these
projects using the agile approach and
gains buy-in on its value by influenc-ing deeply experienced consultants
and client executives alike.
“Through transparent release plan-
ning, collaborative design sessions and
showing value to real customers early
on, the client stakeholders gained con-
fidence and trust throughout the en-
gagement and it was a success,” he
says. “As a customer experience strat-
egist and design consultant within the
IBM Interactive Experience practice, I
get to work with exceptional individu-
als and teams researching, designing
and developing solutions that typi-
cally span a combination of channels
and platforms and integrate the power
of cloud, big data and analytics.”
Wiita says he’s energized by the pro-
cess of understanding new industries
and applying a user-centered design
framework to solve clients’ biggest
problems. “I have a tenacious spirit
and hunger for knowledge. I also have
an innate drive to solve problems and
implement solutions.” ★
