Sonja Hilavuo joins AVP and our education team as the new integration teacher with a wide international business background. Besides working on AVP’s own courses, she will be scaling entrepreneurial insight, business practices, and ways of working to all Aalto schools in close collaboration with different programs and courses.
She hopes to coach students across any discipline towards developing a proactive solution-oriented entrepreneurial mindset, which is appreciated across industries both in private enterprises and in the public sector. The goal is not to push everyone to become an entrepreneur but to build essential intrapreneurial skills, from customer-centricity to systematically creating value within any organizational function. Like all of us at AVP, Sonja believes an entrepreneurial way of working and thinking will be instantly applicable also in summer jobs and early careers.
Sonja has been applying the entrepreneurial mindset all through her working life — whether in large corporations such as Microsoft, Nokia, and Mars or building start-ups to scale-ups whilst generating growth or venture funding. She is also studying for a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management at Aalto and serves as a Business Advisor for two Greentech and Fintech companies.
During her free time, Sonja enjoys photography, painting, and Nordic walking. She is also an avid reader, and not just of academic literature — she’s a big fan of detective fiction and hopes to write her own novel one day.
My motto is the African saying from when I was living in Nigeria: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone — if you want to go far, go together.’ I think that’s true in entrepreneurship as well as education.
We are happy to have you, Sonja! For more information about Sonja, check out her LinkedIn. Feel free to get in touch with her!
