Starians have courage to grow

Staria wants to support the personal growth journeys of our employees, be a great place to grow and enable meaningful career paths. In spring 2022, we organized our very first Courage to Grow Day, where several Starians shared their own unique growth stories, whether they have advanced to more challenging roles or moved between different teams or business functions.

The aim of the event was to provide Starians inspiration, tips and concrete examples of what kind of career journeys colleagues have had and what has helped them grow throughout the years.

Below, you can read short summaries of the stories told in the Courage to Grow Day and learn about different growth journeys taken place at Staria.

Mikko’s career growth from a trainee to a director is astonishing

Mikko Ryömä came to Staria in 2012 as a trainee without prior experience on accounting. He joined Staria via training program held by Saranen and after the program Staria hired him as an accountant. Right from the beginning Mikko was given responsibilities and he got his own customer soon.

In 2016 Mikko worked as a Finance Business Partner and shortly after as an interim Controller for a customer where he got see the other side of the table. After that Mikko moved to work with Staria’s Global Accounting services and learned a lot about global processes and other countries. In 2020 he started in his current role as Development Director and took the responsibility of developing our processes and software solutions.

Here new opportunities are always coming up and I've worked in many different roles – who knows where we’ll be in couple of years! Luckily Staria has been there for me since the very first day of my training program.

Sari changed her career from restaurant to payroll

Sari Karjalainen joined Staria as a career changer in 2018, previously she had worked in restaurants. Sari did her training at Staria but continued as an employee after it. At first, she was little bit nervous, but her team was there for her all the time – she got help and support whenever she needed it.

After getting her own customers, Sari started to gain experience and new skills fast. With increased expertise, she was able to move on to working with bigger and more demanding customerships. In addition to payroll, Sari has also developed customer processes together with Staria’s RPA team. This fall she is switching to a new team where she gets to work even more with service development.

I'm proud of myself and how I've grown in my role during these years. The support of my colleagues and supervisors has been invaluable. I’m excited about the new challenges I’m facing later this year.

Experienced professional Juho is always moving forward

Juho Takalo started at Staria in 2018. He had been working in different financial roles for 17 years and was working as a Chief Accountant in a large, well-known group before joining Staria. First, he was hesitant if changing jobs would be a good decision for his career but soon he realized that Staria was actually a better growth opportunity for him as a financial professional.

Juho started at Staria as an Accounting Advisor but after a year he moved to a smaller group accounting team where "everyone does everything". This provided a lot of great growing and learning opportunities. The newest twist in Juho’s career happened as he started working as a Group Financial Controller, he has enjoyed learning the new role.

Even though I came to Staria with long experience in the field, Staria has still been able to provide me with new challenges and interesting growth opportunities.

Satu has explored different opportunities and is constantly studying new

Satu Perämäki's path at Staria began in 2014 as an accountant in franchising services. In addition she did, and still does, customer communication tasks. After 5 years, Satu expressed her interest in taking a step forward and she was offered a chief accountant's role in a new team. Later Satu returned to franchising services and is now doing diversity of tasks, such as business arrangements, training other Starians and providing expert assistance to different teams. Also, Satu’s texts can be seen on Staria's blog from time to time.

Satu also worked in HR for a while, as she was curious to try it. She quickly realized that it wasn’t her thing but she’s grateful for Staria giving her the chance to explore. Satu is still always willing to learn new things and takes advantage of various education and training opportunities. One example of her achievements is the highly valued KLT-accountant degree.

Staria has always encouraged me with my future plans. The plans have changed many times over the years, but I always share them with my supervisor. She's always looking out for me and that's one of the reasons I still enjoy working at Staria.

Age wants to work in an international environment

Age Kallas has worked at Staria since 2018. She spotted Staria’s job advertisement and immediately thought that the job was a match as she wanted to work in an international environment and was keen on developing modern accounting.

Age works as a Chief Accountant and she has been developing and growing in her role as her responsibilities has changed over the years. Last year Age decided that it was again time for new challenges. She wanted to learn new things and told her supervisor that she didn’t want to be stuck on comfort zone. Discussion led her to take over group reporting of a new customer. Age is also taking part in the process of onboarding new employees in Tallinn office.

Anytime I've wanted new or more responsibilities, I've gotten them. Whether it's just been me wanting out of comfort zone or our growing customers that have provided new challenges.

Noora’s versatile training period has supported her career growth

Noora Järvinen came to Staria straight from school in 2019 to do her training in payroll and HR teams. However, right after starting Noora was asked if she wanted to do the first part of her training in support system team instead of payroll. She bravely took the opportunity to support her learning before proceeding to HR training. Later when Staria’s HR system was changed, the experience of different systems led Noora to work as a project manager for a while.

After her training Noora got to continue at Staria as an HR specialist. In addition to everyday HR tasks, she got to develop HR processes and do customer work which taught her a lot. Nowadays Noora is working as a People & Culture Business Partner and supports Staria’s business units and their leaders on HR matters.

I came to Staria as a trainee and right from the start I was given space to grow. With little experience I still got to do customer work and participate process development, which taught me a lot.

James has gotten to taste Staria’s growth possibilities

James Brierley works in Stockholm as a Project Manager and RPA team lead. He joined Staria in 2020 after working as an engineer in oil and gas industry and as a project manager within the radioisotope identification industry. He was looking for an opportunity to change the field and got it at Staria when starting as a Project Manager.

James’ manager, teammates and other Starians have had an important role in his growth at Staria. Open discussion across business units led him into the additional role of RPA team lead.

If you’re open and say your goals and wishes out loud, people know about them and will support you to achieve them. That’s what’s great about Staria. I’m really excited for the future. Who knows what opportunities still lie ahead!

Noora has grown in her career without strict plans

Noora Malmi came to Staria in 2014 as an accountant in franchising team. As soon as she started, she was focused on making work efficient and wasn’t afraid to question processes. Two years later she became a team leader.

In 2018 she became responsible for the whole franchising business unit but as there was so much going on in the company and her personal life at the same time, she had to slow down. Slowing down brought along something new, after taking a break Noora moved to a different position and started working with systems. In 2021 Noora started working as a Business Solution Manager and in this position she gets to combine her experience in both accounting and systems.

I've always been more of a drifter than a systematic planner when it comes to career growth. By being active and open-minded I've been able to seize opportunities and gotten to do a lot of different things without having to look for a new workplace.

Matias made his interest in RPA his career

Matias Tiala started at Staria in 2018 as an RPA consultant. He had previously worked as an electronics designer in different field, but was very interested in RPA and wanted to work with the subject.

As he started at Staria, many things were new and required learning. However, things went well, and Matias was quickly offered an opportunity to work as RPA team lead. He decided to take it, but team leader’s position didn’t last long as later in 2018 a RPA director’s position opened up and a new opportunity emerged. Since then Matias’ role has changed to Head of automation and his currently focusing on Staria’s internal automation development.

Here everyone is helping you to achieve your goals. With the support of other Starians I’ve reached my current role and experienced major growth.

Are you our new Starian?

We are always on the look for new talents! If you enjoy working with information systems, financial services, HR, payroll, or RPA, we would love to hear from You!

At Staria, openness, enthusiasm and creativity are at the heart of what we do, and our professional team is committed to providing service of highest quality for our customers. If you want to take part in building pioneering solutions, join our growth journey!