Nordic Business Forum and the Seeds That Became Elexive

I am back at Nordic Business Forum in Helsinki, and the contrast with last year could not be sharper. Twelve months ago, I sat in this same venue thinking about my personal next career move, reflecting on where I had been and where I wanted to go. Some fundamental thoughts took shape during those two days. Not because any single talk gave me a ready-made answer, but because the environment forced me to step outside my daily routine and think at a different altitude. That thinking eventually led me to co-found Elexive with Henri Peltomaki.

There is something about conferences like NBF that goes beyond the content on stage. The talks are good, sometimes excellent, but the real value is in the mental space they create. When you remove yourself from your normal context – no Slack notifications, no urgent emails, no sprint reviews – your brain starts working on different problems. The strategic ones. The personal ones. The ones you keep postponing because the operational noise is too loud. Last year, that space gave me the clarity to see that the next step was not another job but building something of my own.

Returning this year as a co-founder rather than an employee changes the lens entirely. I am no longer consuming the content as someone trying to figure out what to do next. I am consuming it as someone who has already made the leap and is now deep in execution. The talks hit differently. The networking conversations are different. Even the informal hallway chats carry a different energy when you are building something versus evaluating options.

The gap between inspiration and action is where most good ideas go to die. Conferences are full of people who leave feeling inspired and then do absolutely nothing about it. I have been that person plenty of times. What made last year different was that the thinking did not stop when I left the venue. I kept pulling at the threads, kept having the conversations, and eventually those threads became something real. The lesson is not that Nordic Business Forum magically creates founders. The lesson is that creating the right conditions for reflection, and then following through, can genuinely change the trajectory of your career.

So here I am, back for another two days, curious about what this year’s reflection will surface. Building Elexive has been intense and rewarding, and I suspect the thinking this time will be less about “what should I do” and more about “how should we grow.” Different questions, same value in stepping away from the daily grind to engage with them properly.