Mika Mäkeläinen

I first heard about Mika from my business partner, Jyri Lindén, and our employee, Miko Jaatinen.

Miko had met Mika through the Junior Achievement Finland organization. As a young adultentrepreneur, Mika felt a strong desire to contribute to young people and encourageentrepreneurship. 

This was also evident in his large-scale Taivas+helvetti book series project.

Mika came to our first big event in Jyväskylä in the fall of 2010 as a customer. When I announced onstage that the following year (2011) the keynote speakers would be Les Brown and Al Gore, Mika cameup to me during the break to marvel at this and to ask more. He probably saw in me and in us then thekind of young entrepreneur he wanted to support. Right then and there, he ordered, if I recallcorrectly, about 30 tickets for the next year’s event.

Soon after, Mika invited me and Jyri to his 35th birthday party, where we got to know him betteragain. I brought a bottle of champagne as a gift. Mika gave me a somewhat puzzled look. Later, Irealized that Mika’s attitude towards alcohol use was quite negative, not exactly a spot-on gift :DMika became a friend and an important mentor-like figure. We even went on a couple of boating tripstogether on Lake Saimaa and Lake Päijänne.

Very early on, Mika strongly recommended that we put together an external board for our company.

At first, it was hard to even understand what that really meant, but the idea began to take root, and in2013 it became reality. After we made the decision, I called Mika to say that we were trying to form this board but weren’t sure how to go about it. I asked him to be the chairman so that it could actuallysucceed. 

Eventually, Mika agreed. He wanted to help once again. Even as chairman of the board, Mika was always accessible more so than any other board member orchairman has ever been to me as CEO. 

I can still hear the warm way he usually answered the phonewhen I called: 

“Hape.”

Mika served as our chairman twice. During the second term, Mika passed away. 

The grief wasimmense and still is.

For Mika, family, his mother, his spouse, and his children was the most important thing of all. At thefuneral, it was heartbreaking to see when one of the children asked their mother, pointing at the asked: 

“Is daddy in there?” 

Mika’s youngest child was only one year old when he passed away.

Thank you for everything, Mika forever ❤️.

Hape

Mika Mäkeläinen was one of the founders of Siili Solutions. He was also a founder of Rainmaker, Frosmo, and DoDreams, and held numerous board positions, including chairman of Nordic Business Forum. Mika was the driving force behind bringing Santa Claus to Asian markets. 

In 2011, he was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Finland.

Mika inspired and encouraged others toward entrepreneurship and to believe in a better tomorrow. He founded the Taivas+helvetti project, in which entrepreneurs shared not only the joys ofentrepreneurship but also its roughness and hardships.

Mika passed away on April 27 in Espoo, at the end of a familiar jogging trail, at the age of 45.

Mika had an exceptional warmth and sensitivity that allowed him to put himself in others’ shoes. When Finland went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, Mika created thetalouskriisi.fi community, which attracted thousands of influencers from the fields of business,politics, and culture. He endured skin cancer and its heavy treatments, but life’s harshness had touched him already at theage of one, when his father died in an accident.

“An enterprising life gives a person a lot.  One can live it out in one’s own company or in someone else’s service.” - Mika