HUMANS board consist of 12 individuals from a variety of backgrounds. We share the passion and drive for human sciences and applied research.
Liubava Shatokhina
Chairperson of Humans
Liubava Shatokhina is research lead at Gemic’s – a global strategy, innovation and thinking partner for world leading companies & organizations. Currently she runs Gemic Institute – an initiative to encourage learning and experimentation within consulting practice.
She believes that the power of anthropological imagination paired with critical thinking can be of great help in addressing complex business decisions. In her view, those who possess these faculties have a moral imperative to assist in shaping our shared destiny on the planet Earth.
Liubava holds three master’s degrees in the philosophy of culture, comparative sociology, and cultural anthropology. Before joining Gemic, Liubava worked as a researcher in the Center for Science and Technology Studies at the European University at St. Petersburg, taught social science in and outside academia, and organized public events to foster social change.
Email me: liubava.shatokhina@gemic.com
Anni Ojajärvi
Principal Strategist at Swanlake.
Anni is experienced strategist and customer-centric business developer. She holds a PhD in sociology and strives to understand how context and phenomena shapes people’s lives today and tomorrow. Anni helps clients create meaningful futures with the help of human sciences, scenario work and futures thinking.
Email me: anni.ojajarvi@gmail.com
Eric Arnould
Dr. Eric Arnould is Emeritus Professor at the Aalto University Business School, Helsinki, Finland.
A global nomad, he has been on faculty at four European universities and several in the US. He has pursued a career in applied social science since 1973, receiving a PhD in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1982. From 1977 until 1990, he worked extensively as an applied anthropologist primarily in francophone West Africa. Eric has consulted for bilateral agencies like USAID, NGOs like CARE, and private firms like Rainbird. Eric’s research on consumer culture, cultural marketing strategy, services marketing, and sustainability and development appears in over 90 articles and chapters in major social science and managerial periodicals and books. Aalto University and University of Southern Denmark awarded him honorary doctorates in 2016 and 2020 respectively for helping codify the field of consumer culture theory and bring ethnographic work into academic marketing research. He has co-edited a second edition of Consumer Culture Theory for Sage Publications.
Sanna Rauhala
Design Anthropologist at Solita.
Sanna navigates the boundaries of physical and virtual realities with ease, and is experienced in providing human insights in both – using tools from social sciences, service design, strategy work and more. She has worked with our sensory experiences, morality of robotics and AI, the so-called digital transformation and is fascinated by pretty much all things human. Inclusivity and digital ethics are ever present in her work, and the landscapes and narratives of space travel make her giddy.
Email me: sanna.rauhala@solita.fi
Elina Reponen
Senior Advisor of research and insight at Miltton.
Elina is a social and cultural anthropologist, who has been working in the field of applied anthropology for the past ten years – first as an entrepreneur at Kenno Anthropological Consulting and now at Miltton.
Email me: elina.reponen@miltton.com
Antti Rannisto
Insight Lead at Solita.
Antti Rannisto is a sociologist and ethnographer working as Insight Lead at Solita’s Design & Strategy team. For the past 10+ years he has worked with applied social science in service and product design, organisational change, brands and communications. Much of Antti’s current work revolves around social implications of new technologies, helping organisations balance and better position human and non-human agency in sociotechnical systems. He also works part-time at Aalto University’s multidisciplinary research group on Civic Agency in AI.
Email me: antti.rannisto@solita.fi
Laura Parviainen-Vilo
Laura (M.A & MBA) has a diverse skill set encompassing anthropology, business design, and change management. She is a change agent who is deeply motivated by people, co-creation, projects, and innovation. She is currently employed at Elisa.
She has strong desire to understand how organizations can contribute to generating value for their customers. She has a keen ability to recognize and determine the “jobs” people are attempting to accomplish and how they can be supported. Laura’s favorite methods of achieving this are through workshops, interviews, and observations, which she finds extremely gratifying as she strives to make a positive impact on people’s lives.
Additionally, as Laura is professionally trained and certified project management professional with an IPMA D-level certification, she can employ various project management techniques and tools to assist in her work.
Email me: lauraparviainenvilo@outlook.com
Juuli Hilska
Juuli is a sociologist with a passion to drive a human-centric approach through qualitative research in business and technology environments. She thrives in innovative environments driven by the curiosity of understanding human behavior and ambition to look into the future. She works as a consulting researcher at Noren Oy and her professional experience includes working for NGOs, public sector and academia, as well as for technology companies and doing freelance consulting in the private sector.
Hanna-Kaisa Alanen
Hanna-Kaisa is an experienced designer passionate about understanding human experience in emerging circumstances. With a focus on HTI design, her PhD explores everyday socio-emotional experiences and meaning-making processes. Utilizing fashion as an analytical tool, she aims to contribute to strategic design processes. She’s currently a Project Researcher for Vaasa University’s BUGGED (Emotional Experience of Privacy, Ethics and Cyber Security in Pervasive Computing Systems) project funded by Academy of Finland and a member of Puistokatu 4 Science Attic.
Email me: alanen.hk@gmail.com
Pekka Enroth
Pekka is a Project Manager, Systems Thinker and Organizational Network Developer at the City of Espoo and the founder of Seymour Consulting. He has special expertise in doing organizational development by co-designing self-managing practices, doing iterative development, consulting networks and other large organizations and doing organizational research on strategy work from a practice theory and systemic perspective.
Email me: pekka@seymour.fi
Riitta Nieminen
Riitta is a seasoned sociologist with extensive experience in strategic foresight, qualitative research, and regional development, among other things. She has a strong interest in understanding humans and their material culture, and she is eager to shrink her footprint on the planet. She is currently employed as a Director, Foresight and Concept Creation by Lundén Architecture Company.
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