‘We need to get to work and set the bar high’

Monika Liikamaa has been appointed Executive in Residence at the Department of Management Studies at the School of Business as of 1 April 2026. Monika will work in the School of Business Entrepreneurship Unit (ENTU) and support the development of entrepreneurial potential among students across Aalto. She will work closely on key projects such as Aalto Founder School, collaborate with researchers and actively participate in the planning and promotion of university-wide entrepreneurship initiatives.

Monika Liikamaa has extensive experience as a fintech entrepreneur and thought leader in the field. She is best known as the founder of Enfuce. Enfuce is one of Europe’s leading payment and card issuing platforms. She has strong expertise in both software development and senior positions in the banking and financial sector. 

Monika is Swedish-Finnish, meaning she was born in Sweden to Finnish parents. ‘I met my husband Reima in 1994 and moved to Finland in 1996. Before that, in the early 1990s, I had seen the recession years from very close by. We decided to move from the north, from Haparanda, to Southern Finland. Now we have four children, and the youngest is already in upper secondary school as well.’

Career move set in motion at a hackathon

After ten years at Enfuce, Monika Liikamaa felt it would be nice to start doing something new. She had already been collaborating for several years with Aalto Entrepreneurship Society (Aaltoes), so she had some ideas about opportunities she could seize at Aalto.

‘I want to give back and help young people, especially women. One of my mottos is “For women by women”. I came to serve on the jury of the PORT_26 hackathon event organised at Aalto in the spring. My colleague, Professor Maija Renko, gave the students encouraging feedback and excellent scores for their presentations at the event, and many of the student teams were good. However, I thought that we could already be demanding more. If you want to succeed in international competition, students must be ready to receive stricter constructive feedback so that they can improve their performance and succeed. During that event I told Maija that I was considering a career move, and that is where it started.’

It is good to be humble, but not apologetic

Monika Liikamaa is upset that in Finland people downplay themselves, which seems to be part of being Finnish. ‘For no reason! There should be nothing shameful about achievement and success. Through this self-deprecation and belittling our achievements we teach young people, especially young women, to be ashamed of and even afraid of success.’

‘The reason why the Finnish economy has not grown in 20 years is in our heads. We are good, we have good education and a safe and clean living environment, but even all the tax-related solutions are built around shame, self-effacement and envy. You should be humble, but not apologetic! So the mindset in this country has to change.’ 

According to Monika, there are also some ‘funny, self-effacing’ words and expressions in Finnish, such as the word ‘yrittäjä’ (literally ‘trier’). ‘I am not some trier, I am a doer!’ Monika exclaims. ‘The Federation of Finnish Enterprises, OMG.’ 

Contrary to common talk, Monika Liikamaa says that there is work available. ‘As a young adult I lived through the recession, so I do remember how difficult it was then. However, these are not such difficult times now. Of course job seeking requires work, but we must remember that all work is valuable and you learn from every job, so you should seize the opportunity to work. Everyone should take responsibility for their own success, and I am not just talking about money. Every step is a step forward. There will be setbacks at times, but then you move forward again.’

More multidisciplinarity is needed to achieve success

Monika Liikamaa has a strong vision of what she wants to do at Aalto. ‘I want to be solving and carrying forward all kinds of challenging and exciting entrepreneurship things. Aalto is a very good and respected university with almost limitless opportunities.’

‘When we consider how much high-level research and teaching there is at Aalto, it is baffling how few spin-offs emerge from here. Based on my own empirical analysis, this is because multidisciplinarity is still in its infancy. We need more multidisciplinarity and diversity!’

According to Monika, 30% of the world’s innovations are created in Europe, but only 2% of them are commercialised here. And only 2% of VC funding goes to companies founded by women. ‘If we do not even teach women to go to investors to tell them what they are solving and that they need money, it is difficult to get it. Yet companies founded by women perform better than those founded by men. There is evidence for that.’

Among other things, in promoting the matters mentioned above, Monika Liikamaa wants to set the bar high for the next two years. She also notes that although artificial intelligence is coming, interaction between people remains important. ‘People want to interact with people and people need each other. We must think together about how we could improve collaboration and thereby build success.’ 

Monika Liikamaa was interviewed by Terhi Ollikainen