Malene Grouleff

Head of Finance at Unilever in the Nordics, Alexey Pavlov, works with a team of 35 finance and data specialists, serving a Nordic organisation with approx. 400 employees in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. To drive Unilever’s business, the team converts data into insights by identifying processes that are very complex and highly repetitive.

The automation of routine tasks is at the top of the agenda for Carsten Gram Andersen, CFO of Blue Ocean Robotics. The company markets the brands UVD Robots, GoBe Robots and PTR Robots, which open the door to automated disinfection, rehabilitation and telepresence. Blue Ocean Robotics is based in Denmark, the most digitalised country in Europe; more specifically, in the city of Odense, also known as the “European capital of robotics”. Carsten Gram Andersen sees his primary task as being able to free up as much time as possible to focus on business analysis of the company’s performance because that is where the finance department can really generate value for the rest of the organisation.

At Aarbakke in Norway, the Norwegian machine manufacturer that is over 100 years old and which sells parts and equipment worth billions to the global oil and gas industry, the company has created a culture where all employees love to conceive great ideas for improvements, optimisation and automation. This means that Aarbakke’s CFO John Lende receives a lot of valuable input about how to fine-tune the company’s processes even more.

Petri Karjalainen from Helsinki in Finland was among the very first to introduce RPA. That was back in 2014, when he managed more than 600 accountants. Today, he has made a shift to software industry to Accountor Group, where he works with over 2000 accounting offices as SVP, Business Solutions at Accountor Finago Oy.