Having spent 25 years leading technology transformation, platform engineering and architecture at DBS, Nordea and Deutsche Bank, Petri Tuomola has seen first-hand how much value is lost when industry and research operate in separate worlds. On one hand, research is “not always aimed at the questions executives are wrestling with, nor translated into a form they can act on”. At the same time, “too many consequential technology and business decisions are still made on management intuition rather than evidence”, he notes.
It is a gap that Petri believes CDBG is well positioned to close. “The Nordics already lead Europe in public-private research collaboration, and Aalto [University] is well placed to turn that into practical impact for business.” The centre can make research “findings accessible and usable for decision-makers”, Petri says.
Petri expects CDBG to become a place where rigorous research and pressing business questions genuinely meet. He believes his practical experience from running data, AI, and technology transformation at scale in regulated industries will help to address some of the most critical questions around how AI, and agentic AI in particular, is changing business models, operating models and the nature of work itself.