Dr. Arho Suominen, Ph.D., is Research Professor of  Strategic Foresight. at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Adjunct professor at Tampere University (Finland). In his role, Suominen is a scientific leader and a key contributor to VTT’s scientific and technological excellence. He is responsible for building a visionary research agenda, leading execution of the agenda to create global scientific excellence, nurturing high ambition level and substance excellence in the organization through inspiring, sparring and mentoring, and developing talents.

Dr. Suominen’s research focuses on qualitative and quantitative assessment of technology strategy, technological change and innovations systems with a special focus on data mining methods. His recent work has focused on modelling science and technology systems through large data collections using tech mining methods. He also work with novel metrics to assess innovation systems either at an societal, technological or economics level.

His prior research has been funded by the European Commission via H2020, Academy of Finland, Finnish Funding Agency for Technology, Turku University Foundation and the Fulbright Center Finland. Through the Fulbright program, he worked as Visiting Scholar at the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Suominen has published work in several top level journals such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Science and Public Policy, Scientometrics, Journal of Systems and Software, Futures, foresight and Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. Dr. Suominen has a Doctor of Science (Tech.) degree from the University of Turku and holds an Officers basic degree from the National Defence University of Finland.

HIGHLIGHTS

•  Technical expertise from electronics, data science and telecommunications sector with knowledge in ML/AI, Metaverse, Industry 5.0
• Hired, led and developed a team of 8 researchers and data analyst. Was a member in business area leadership team setting R&D strategy
• Industrial research experience within a technology R&D organization. Managed a research portfolio of over 1Meuro, leading all aspects of research. Many project run with cross-cultural and multidisciplinary teams.
• Communicate insights to C-level audience in an advisory role regularly, participated 20+ project steering groups,
• Experience developing partnerships with diverse stakeholders, ranging from academia to private sector. Most of the 15+ projects I have led, I have also led partner acquisition.
• Experience in technical writing in a scientific or technical field, as well as grant applications or research proposals.
• Published 30+ empirical research papers , share expertise 20+ interviews, guest talks and expert panels.
• Planned and delivered instructional services to different audiences ranging from undergraduate, graduate to executive MBA. Consistently received evaluation over 4 out of 5 for individual lectures of courses
• Evaluated 20+ full business case proposals from start-ups looking for venture funding. Participated in pitching a deep tech start-up in several funding rounds (seed & early stage). Have been a member of the board at two start-ups. Have been a member of internal IP board
• Designated as a internal advocate and though leader promoting technological change and analytics. Run a corporate wide strategy development project, reporting to EVP, on leading excellence development