Petri Salminen re-elected chair of Suomen Yrittäjät

Petri Salminen was elected to chair the board of Suomen Yrittäjät, the Finnish SME association, for a third term on Friday. Jussi Pirhonen and Stina Siikonen were elected as vice chairs.

In Seinäjoki on Friday, the general assembly of Suomen Yrittäjät elected a new leadership for the association for the next two years. The term for all the newly elected officials is two years and begins at once.

Petri Salminen, who has led the association for the past four years, is continuing in the role of chair. Salminen stood for re-election unopposed.

Salminen, who is from Central Finland, runs his own business, the sales and leadership development service firm Salminen & Tikka Oy, and is one of the owners of the family-run engineering firm AJ-Tools Oy. Salminen is also the president of the European SME umbrella organization SMEunited.

“I’ve given my all so far, and I’m going to give my all for the next two years, now with four years of experience,” Salminen said after his re-election.

He hopes to be able to bring the reforms of the association now under way to completion during the next two years.

“During my first two chairmanships, we started things and achieved results. During the next two years, we’ll complete them.”

“Every week brings more experience”

Salminen says the past four years have exposed businesses to more or less constant shocks, making it harder for them to do business.

“I’d like to see fewer shocks. I’d like to see SY as an organization being able to focus on building businesses’ growth, not just on businesses’ survival.”

Salminen considers the lessons he has learnt during his two previous terms in the chair his strengths when advocating for SMEs.

“I know people and how they work better now than when I began as chair. Every year and week bring more experience of the people who make decisions in our association and in society. By the same token, the people I work with in this association are more familiar with how I work. That makes achieving results easier.”

“Government has an excellent programme”

Salminen’s goal is to make Suomen Yrittäjät an even more attractive platform for business owners. However, he also accepts that global crises could yet again affect the business environment.

“The world is full of potential crises, such as in the Middle East. The US presidential elections are decisive. Europe has big competitiveness problems which need to be solved. On top of that, Finland has the problem of over-regulation.”

The dire state of the Finnish economy is one of the most difficult problems. Salminen believes that one solution could be better understanding of the conditions business owners need to thrive.

“Petteri Orpo’s Government has an excellent programme, so the good parts need to be implemented. They have to do with making the labour market more flexible, improving the opportunities for businesses and their owners, and increasing and liberalizing competition. All of these are good parts of the programme which need to be implemented.”

New vice chairs

At the general assembly, Suomen Yrittäjät received two new vice chairs. Jussi Pirhonen from Satakunta and Stina Siikonen from Southwest Finland were elected. The other candidates were Janne Lintukorpi from Häme and Anne Niemi from South Ostrobothnia.

In the election, Pirhonen received 30.7% of votes, Siikonen 24.8%, Lintukorpi 22.8% and Niemi 21.7%.

The outgoing vice chairs Jyrki Hakkarainen and Jenni Parpala did not stand for re-election.

Laaksonen continues in representative council chair

The general assembly re-elected Mari Laaksonen from Helsinki to continue as chair of the representative council. She won the vote against Jyrki Hakkarainen from Southwest Finland. Laaksonen received 66% of the votes.

Janne Vuorinen from Pirkanmaa was elected vice chair of the representative council. He stood unopposed.

General assembly calls for strong growth measures

The Suomen Yrittäjät general assembly voiced its opinion on the Finnish Government’s growth policies. In a resolution, the general assembly stated that it is the businesses that create growth in Finland, which is why Finland needs strong growth measures to help and encourage Finnish SMEs to grow, as well as to help business owners make investments that would accelerate growth.

The Suomen Yrittäjät general assembly’s resolution said:

• All the labour market reforms agreed in the Government Programme must be implemented purposefully and uncompromisingly.
• Suomen Yrittäjät proposes increasing competition and opening of the markets, in line the Government Programme, by reining in public-sector business, particularly in-house companies.
• Suomen Yrittäjät proposes the Government scraps regulation in line with its Programme, streamlines planning and permits, and promotes the reduction and modernization of EU red tape to improve the functioning of the single market.
• Suomen Yrittäjät proposes directing RDI tax incentives towards SMEs, which are proven to make the innovations that generate the most productivity.

Read the Suomen Yrittäjät general assembly’s resolution in full here.

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