In this episode of The Ideas To life podcast, Esa Nettamo from Digitalist talks with Maria Uhari Pakkalin, head of customer experience design, Fortum. Certified Yoga instructor. A very interesting backstory on how this podcast came to be, it seemed near impossible to get both Esa’s and Maria’s schedules to align given their very packed days. However, by pure coincidence, on a plane Finnair plane trip they were seated next to each other and had the time to talk and plan this podcast.
Maria’s background in design started in the year 2000, where she was supposed to become a French translator, but luckily found an alternative with communication studies. As she was writing her Thesis she discovered the magic of usability and ultimately shifted her focus towards that. It rapidly became her passion and drive and been in the industry ever since.
Fortum is a leading clean energy company that develops and provides solutions for customers in electricity, heating, cooling, and solutions to improve resource efficiency. They also provide services for power generation industries so that customers and people all around can be elevated to smarted energy consumption usage. They drive energy for a cleaner world. Maria has a team now in place in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, and Salsburg.
To find out how Fortum engages with their design, R&D, and their overall customer experience journey, listen to the entire podcast.