Matti Lehti Professorship established to honour Chancellor Emeritus' life's work

The School of Business’s Department of Information and Service Economy professorship has been named after Matti Lehti. The professorship covers decision-making in business administration.

Matti Lehti (b. 1947), Chancellor Emeritus was chancellor of the Helsinki School of Economics in 2005–2009. Before this, he acted as President and CEO of TietoEnator Oyj in 1989–2005 and then as chairman of the company's Board of Directors until 2008.

The professorship honours Matti Lehti's influential role in building Finnish society and the development of the Aalto University School of Business. Mr Lehti played a key role when Aalto University was founded.

Aalto University established the professorship not only to honour Mr Lehti's life's work, but also in recognition of the support the Foundation for Economic Education (LSR) has provided for the promotion of scientific research at Aalto's School of Business. The Foundation for Economic Education has supported the promotion of economic education for the good of Finnish society for nearly 100 years (1919– ) already.

Matti Lehti acted as chairman of the board at the Foundation for Economic Education in 2000–2012 and as a member of its executive committee in 1997–2012. Mr Lehti continues to be a member of the board at the Foundation for Economic Education as he has been since 1994.

At the beginning of May, Assistant Professor Eeva Vilkkumaa takes over the professorship. Ms Vilkkumaa's area of focus in her research is the development of mathematical models to support decision-making and the allocation of resources. She has specifically examined the modelling of uncertainties, group decision-making and multi-phase decision-making processes.

Ms Vilkkumaa transferred to the School of Business from the Department of Mathematics and System Analysis at Aalto University's School of Science, where she was a Post-Doctoral Researcher.