Staria's New Chairman Of The Board Markus Huttunen: In Accounting, There's No Room For Six-toed Children

Markus Huttunen has served on the Board of Staria, an IT systems and financial services company, since 2020 and has now been appointed Chairman of the Board. The appointment took effect in October 2026. The change follows the planned departure of the previous Chairman, but it comes at a time when AI is shaking up the financial management sector faster than any technology before it. According to Huttunen, the leap in efficiency could, at worst, halve the entire market – but at Staria, the change is not seen as a threat.

When Markus Huttunen was asked to join Staria's Board six years ago, his first thought was that he wasn't the right person for the job.

"I'd used accounting firms, but that's a bit like asking someone to join the board of a clothing company because they wear clothes. I'm not a finance professional," Huttunen says.

He changed his mind for two reasons. First, technology was going to transform the industry dramatically. Second, Staria focuses specifically on serving growth companies. Given his technology background and knowledge of growth companies, Huttunen felt he had something to offer Staria's Board after all.

Now Huttunen has stepped up to lead the Board. In his day job, he is the CEO of Witted Megacorp, a software consultancy firm. As Chairman of Staria, he succeeds Mika Sutinen, who has led the Board since 2021 and has now decided to systematically reduce his board commitments.

"I knew the issues well, and the previous Chairman and I had moved things forward nicely. It was an easy yes."

His term begins at a time when AI is rapidly changing the financial management sector. Huttunen is frank about the potential impact:

"Accounting is a bit like a government-imposed tax. It has to be done, and if you can do it twice as efficiently, the market halves. But that's not how we look at things at Staria, and that's what makes this so interesting to be part of."

In his view, Staria is well placed for this: the company has been preparing for the change longer than most.

Automation long before the AI boom

Staria was founded at a time when accounting in most companies still meant binders full of paper. Even then, Staria's starting point was that machines handle the repetition and people handle whatever requires judgement. According to Huttunen, the same thinking is now everyday reality across the industry: for a decade, it has been impossible to make strategic decisions in financial management without also making technology decisions.

When he got to know the company in 2019–2020, Staria was already using a product called Staria AI, which automated bookkeeping entries with machine learning.

"This has been done at scale since long before AI became a household term."

He sees the same pattern in Staria's growth. Accounting firms are not traditionally known for strong organic growth.

"Staria's attitude has always been completely different, both in how the company grows and in the kind of clients it serves. Growth is a matter of attitude."

In practice, this attitude has shown in Staria pioneering the introduction of the NetSuite ERP system in Finland, for example. On top of it, the company built a service concept for businesses operating in multiple countries. Today, that concept covers more than 50 countries. Later, the company acquired Naviloq, whose technology supports versatile data processing.

Huttunen also highlights something that sets Staria apart from a traditional accounting firm.

"Very few financial services companies have a CTO with a genuinely large organisation developing their own systems. That's a big advantage."

If accounting becomes twice as efficient, does the market halve?

Over his career, Huttunen has witnessed several technological upheavals, starting with the internet. The new generation of language models has set off a transformation of knowledge work, and he can't think of anything in recent history that matches its pace.

In financial management, the development itself is nothing new. Accounting has been digitalised and automated for decades.

"Now AI is bringing a completely new kind of speed to it. Rocket fuel."

Still, Huttunen doesn't believe the leap in efficiency automatically means a shrinking market.

At Staria, the upheaval forces the question of how services are delivered, which business models they're offered through, and what could be offered alongside accounting, ERP systems and business planning services (budgeting, forecasting and management reporting).

As Chairman, Huttunen is putting three issues on the Board's agenda that weren't considered in the same way just a few years ago. The first is processes that used to be far too expensive to automate. Automating them requires a new kind of technology expertise alongside financial management know-how.

The second is ERP systems. When systems are customised semi-automatically with the help of AI, the basics can be up and running faster and at lower cost. With the same budget that used to cover only a standard implementation, a system can now also be tailored far more precisely to the client's business.

"The benefit you get from them is on a completely different level. At the same time, lots of new kinds of players have entered the systems market, and we need to keep a very close eye on them."

The third is pure technology strategy: what the best system landscape is for clients and for Staria itself, and what expertise it takes to build it.

One observation surprised even Huttunen himself. In the age of AI, something very traditional is gaining value: consistent ways of working, documenting them, and good old-fashioned process management.

"It sounds funny. Can't you just tune AI to do things however you like? But if things aren't done the same way to begin with, you won't get the benefits of automation, or it will take far too long."

The most demanding clients ask first

According to Huttunen, the AI upheaval is reaching Staria earlier than many other players in the industry, and the reason lies in its client base. Staria's clients are largely internationally growing technology companies, most of which were founded and built on technology from the start.

"They're seriously impressive companies. Companies like that won't work with a partner who doesn't share their view on how to use technology."

Staria's clients include Wolt, Vinted, Storytel and Supercell.

"We're up against the most demanding finance departments there are, ones that want to understand how technology is used and how things can be done with ever higher quality and efficiency. That's why I believe these questions reach us a little earlier and on a bigger scale than others."

In financial management, however, AI has less leeway than in many other fields. Huttunen points to the way strange details tend to appear in AI-generated images.

"In accounting, you can't have six-toed children. We operate in a statutory environment where the requirements for quality and accuracy are extremely high."

He describes AI as a super-capable person who needs very precise instructions. Otherwise, it will always look for the lowest part of the fence to climb over.

This also defines where the accountant's job is heading. According to Huttunen, the work won't disappear, but the role will change a great deal.

"People will become builders rather than doers of routine tasks. We don't want finance professionals spending their time figuring out how something should be booked, doing manual reconciliations or unwinding holiday pay accruals every month. Instead, we build workflows that do it automatically, and we monitor them."

He says three tasks remain for people: analytical work that steers the business, teaching and building automations, and quality assurance. Automation is always built client by client.

"We don't have one magical AI tool that handles every financial management task for every client. Nor can we assume that every accountant will become a controller. That's one path, but certainly not for everyone."

For clients, Huttunen says the biggest benefit of the change is that money starts shifting from mandatory work to steering the business.

"Financial data is typically a company's best-formalised data. When producing it becomes cheaper and easier, we can start asking what it means: what can we do better, and where will our next growth come from?"

A change that comes slower, but bigger, than expected

Huttunen doesn't present himself as a financial management expert; his strengths lie elsewhere. An engineer by training, Huttunen has built his career on growing companies through digitalisation. He has worked as an entrepreneur and served on the boards of numerous technology and growth companies before becoming the CEO of Witted Megacorp in September 2025. Software development is perhaps where AI's impact on knowledge work is most visible, and Huttunen has a front-row seat.

In his view, the same phenomenon applies to white-collar work more broadly, and it is visible in financial management too: repetitive, rule-based work is moving to machines, and the value of deep expertise is rising.

The courage to experiment and openness to new ideas have always been part of how Staria operates, and Huttunen says they are needed now more than ever, even though there is no reason to expect change to happen overnight. He returns to a well-known rule of thumb in the tech world: people overestimate how fast technology will change things in one year and underestimate how much it will change them in ten.

"Right now everyone assumes the whole world will change completely, very soon. The truth is, it won't. But if we did this interview ten years from now, the change would have been far bigger than we think today."

Many short-term calculations of how quickly an AI investment will pay for itself are likely to miss the mark, he says. The reason is the same as in the rule of thumb: in the short term, the benefits are easily overestimated, because changing processes, ways of working and skills takes time. That is why, in his view, experiments shouldn't be judged solely on whether they pay for themselves within a year.

"If you don't start experimenting and learning with new technology, you'll be hopelessly behind a few years from now."

Courage still has its limits. The tech industry's "move fast and break things" mindset doesn't fit statutory accounting.

"The desire to experiment will never come before the accuracy of the accounts. In statutory accounting, there's no compromise on reliability."

The goal for 2030

When Huttunen is asked what Staria should look like in 2030, the answer comes without hesitation.

"We're the leading European player in modern, AI-assisted financial management."

Markus Huttunen

• Chairman of the Board of Staria, Board member since 2020

• CEO of Witted Megacorp Plc since September 2025

• M.Sc. (Tech.), born 1976

• Long career in growth companies and digitalisation, as an entrepreneur and on the boards of several technology companies

Staria

• An IT systems and financial services company specialising in internationally growing businesses

• Accounting service concept covering more than 50 countries

• Revenue of EUR 55 million and over 500 employees in 2025

More information:

Artti Aurasmaa   
CEO | Staria Oyj   
artti.aurasmaa@staria.com 
+358 45 186 1775   

Viivi Uuttu  
Head of Marketing | Staria Oyj   
viivi.uuttu@staria.com