Living and working across three continents changes how you think about every customer.

When I was studying, I didn't know my career would end up in marketing. I knew I enjoyed thinking about consumer insights and consumer behaviour and what makes us take certain decisions. My first jobs in sales and marketing made me realise this was a field where I could use that interest, and I followed the path.

The international background is part of who I am. I've lived and worked in marketing in Chile, Germany, Finland, and the past ten years in New York. That's shaped how I think and what I take into consideration when I think about customers, and it's where the customer-centric lens comes from. The cultural-nuance work goes beyond translation. The asset is being able to connect in the language, but a bigger part is the curiosity and motivation to learn about the consumers you're engaging with.

2015, when I moved from Helsinki to New York. In Finland we grow up in a culture where modesty and staying humble are valued. Proverbs warn don't try to reach something too high for you because you might end up worse off and if you're really happy, try not to make people jealous. That mindset doesn't work in New York. I had to learn to verbalise what my accomplishments are and to speak comfortably about my team's success. The crash course began then and has continued to evolve. I keep my Finnish roots; you also have to read the environment you're in. The same observation holds in the UK; people don't shout about themselves on LinkedIn, and flash Harry is what people don't want to be.

Customer-centricity starts with putting yourself in the shoes of the customer and being open and curious. The natural human pattern is that ten or fifteen or twenty years in an industry makes you think you're knowledgeable about the industry and your customers. The argument I'd make is that being customer-centric also means being open to new developments.

Twelve years ago in Europe, I had regular conversations with traditional industries (automotive, finance) where the brand position was I know my competitors and my consumers; yes there's this thing called digital, but I know how my consumers behave. The competitive set is very different now. There are new ways consumers make purchase decisions. Be curious, be open, stay close to consumers.

The balance between quantitative data and AI tools on one side and qualitative signals (human behaviour, cultural nuance) on the other is an ongoing one. There's no shortage of data, research, and insights to gather. The balance lands where humans steer the research, decide what really matters, and shape the narrative. AI is the tool. Humans steer.

We have so much data, and from a B2B perspective the opportunity is more tools in the internal work and in the collaboration between B2B marketing and the sales teams. Sales teams literally spend time with customers. They have silent knowledge: discussions, sometimes calls, recorded conversations. How do we make sure that knowledge is brought internally to the people who can benefit from it?

I worked in sales for years. The last thing you want to do after a great meeting is sit down and write a novel about it. Tools that easily capture the knowledge sales teams have, so that knowledge is nurtured and used, are what excites me.

Ask any global company and there is no single perfect formula. It's an ongoing balance and dance. What is critical: a crisp company positioning at the core. Make it really clear internally for employees, something everyone understands and can repeat. Then connect to local nuances so there's a flavour and a tone that lands when you engage with customers in that market. The obvious examples (a product launch with winter snow scenery doesn't translate to Brazil or Australia) come from the basic principle: you need both sides, the crisp corporate positioning and the local layer.

I co-chair and am a global lead of the women's ERG. We started with a couple of local chapters; now there are over ten local chapters worldwide. Talks, lunches around specific topics, guest speakers. What I have enjoyed most is observing how people come together when there is something they care about. Not every person wants to do the exact same thing we might come up with in New York. Some prefer smaller forums (a knitting club, a lunch, watching a TED talk together). Wonderful to see the ideas come across different offices. The leadership lessons run back into the work: understanding what motivates someone to put in extra hours for something that benefits people who are welcome to come.

I grew up in a country where Finnish is spoken only there, so language learning is encouraged from school. Living and working in different countries gives you confidence in a language. The secret to a keynote that resonates is only partly the local-language piece. The bigger part is spending time researching who is in the audience, which city you're in, what news is going on that day. If something is on everyone's mind in the audience and you show you did the homework and want to connect, people value it. You can do that even if you don't speak the language.

The principle is the same: who is the audience, what do they care about, how do I create something that speaks to their needs? A C-suite meeting is a different setup; be to the point, be respectful of their time. A keynote with hundreds of people is different. The core is the same: understand what's been positioned, what you're there to deliver, what insights they will care about most. Deliver what they will care about, rather than what you care about.

There are different motivations for why people show up: to watch content online, to attend a keynote, to read in the trade press. Inspirational and entertaining. For connectivity (this is relevant for my industry). Educational (helpful). I keep these in mind when preparing.

In B2B marketing, what is educational and what is helpful matters most. Like a how-to video where you learn to fix your refrigerator yourself, B2B audiences want something tangible. My philosophy when preparing: what's entertaining here, what's going to make people smile, what's helpful that they can take with them. Many beautiful frameworks exist; mine is simple: think about the motivations and how to insert them into the story.

The opportunities and challenges are related to AI and data. What keeps me up at night is the speed. How fast everything is moving: consumer behaviour, the macro context for countries, our surroundings. When new technology or AI tools arrive, no one can argue we know exactly what's going to happen. There are pivots. The opportunity and challenge: stay close to consumers and customers, understand the changes, harness technology to help.

The more clearly we connect marketing as driving concrete business results, the more powerful the position of marketing. When you can talk about marketing as driving business results and being a critical instrument for the overall success of the company, alongside being the owner of the brand and the story, that's a powerful position. There's pressure on marketers to deliver more because there's so much data. It's an opportunity and a challenge. I'm optimistic. The opportunity for marketers to position themselves strongly is real.

The oldest tale of times is how do we make marketing and sales work together as one rather than as different islands? If we want to be customer-centric and we have data and tools at hand, the question is how to use them to build stronger connectivity, know our joint goals, look at the same metrics, and connect the dots between the internal stakeholders.

Be curious. Explore different avenues. Have experiences, internships (common in the Nordics as part of studies). The more you stay curious and open, the more you can learn new skills. In our industry, you should never think I've been doing this a long time so now I know how to do this. Every year there will be new things and new challenges. The people who embrace change and have the mindset to learn new things are well-positioned.