Work

My main job is at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland as the Lead Lean & Agile Coach.

I also do coaching, training, and speaking engagements about effectiveness, productivity and sustainable pace in knowledge work for organisations, companies and in different kinds of events via my own Sami Paju’s Holistic Consulting Company.

I have a master’s degree in economics and business administration. I have also worked as a researcher in Aalto University, focusing on experimentation-driven development and how to manage uncertainty in innovative projects.

I have also written and contributed to multiple non-fiction books in Finnish.

Photography

I started to take photography seriously in the early 2000s when Canon and Nikon released their first affordable dSLR’s. At first my aim was to get material that I used to create digital art, but over time my focus shifted more towards pure photography.

A big leap in developing as a photographer took place in 2010-11, when I lived in South Korea. And to this day Seoul remains my absolute favourite place for street photography. A more dynamic and diverse city is hard to find.

My urge and interest in creating photographs has waxed and waned over the years. Sometimes it has been hard to grab a camera, let alone create anything I could be happy with. Yet photography has remained by my side to this day.

I am likely to be a student of photography for the rest of my life. Maybe I will start to take it really seriously when I retire and have more time to spare :)

Over the years I have shot with different cameras from Nikon, Olympus, Lumix, Sony and Leica. My current kit consists of Fujifilm gear and a battered old Ricoh GR.

Other

In addition to photography, a significant pastime is board games, which I have accumulated by several dozen.

I try to keep myself in shape by mostly going to the gym and running. The older I become, the more I also find myself working on mobility and doing yoga or qi gong. I also love snowboarding, which I started doing in the 90s when the sport was taking its first steps in Finland.

I appreciate books, music, coffee and dark chocolate. As an old nerd who started playing games with Commodore 64 and Amiga, I am especially keen on the creations of From Software and CDPR.