Jouko Ahvenainen

Jouko Ahvenainen

Investment Professional & Entrepreneur

Location
San Francisco Bay Area
Industry
Financial Services
Current
  1. Grow VC Group,
  2. CrowdValley,
  3. Grow Advisors
Previous
  1. Ladybird Innovations,
  2. Springboard Ventures Private Limited,
  3. Enreach Group, Inc.
Education
  1. Aalto University
Recommendations18 people have recommended Jouko
500+ connections

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Summary

Jouko Ahvenainen is a serial-entrepreneur, e.g. co-founder of Grow VC Group, a pioneer in digital finance and fintech solutions, including digital investing and p2p lending. He participated in changing US finance regulation, getting the Senate and President to allow crowdfunding and has worked with EU and Asian finance regulation. Jouko started his work with crowdfunding models in 2008.

Jouko is a founder, partner and board member in several innovative digital finance companies. Jouko is also an advisor for US, European and Asian investing and finance programs. He has especially worked to plan and implement models to get crowd investing and institutional investor models to work together.

Jouko has worked in teams to close several VC deals (from 150k USD to 15M USD), and also closed many large customer deals and been responsible for 40M USD annual revenue. He started his first own software business when he was 16-years-old. Jouko has been a Certified Adviser for the NasdaqOMX First North lists stock exchanges. Jouko is on the boards of various start-up companies, and is a co-founder or seed investor in more than 15 companies.

Earlier he co-founded data analytics businesses, the world first social network analytics service. Before his serial entrepreneur career Jouko held senior positions at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Powerwave Technologies Inc. and Nokia. Jouko has vast experience of international business in Asia, Europe, and North America; he has lived and worked in the UK, the US, Finland, Malaysia and run business in Hong Kong. Jouko regularly speaks about innovative finance models and digital business in conferences and media including CNBC Squawk Box, SXSW, MWC and The Peter Drucker Forum. He is listed World Influencers in Digital Industry and crowdfunding.

Jouko holds an MBA from Helsinki School of Economics / McCombs School of Business, at the University of Texas, Austin and a M.Sc.(Tech.) from Helsinki University of Technology.

Experience

Volunteer Experience & Causes

  • Secretary of Communications Workgroup

    National Coalition Party Parliament Group
    – (4 years 1 month)Politics

    Secretary and expert in the work group that prepares decisions in the parliament group including new legislation.

  • Board Member

    Student Union of National Coalition Party (Tuhatkunta)
    – (2 years)Politics

  • Campaign Manager

    Member of Parliament
    – (6 years 8 months)Politics

    Campaign Manager (Finland) in several elections, created some best known campaign themes and slogans. The candidate was elected to the Parliament.

  • Council Member for Association of Finnish Graduate Engineers

    Tekniikan akateemiset TEK
    – (3 years 1 month)Science and Technology

    The council makes all top level decisions for the organization, council members are elected for 3-year period.

  • Member of the Technology Committee

    Tekniikan akateemiset TEK
    – (3 years 1 month)Science and Technology

    Technology Committee works to support technology development ecosystem, funding and politics, and also selects the winner of the annual Finnish Engineering Award.

Opportunities Jouko is looking for:

  • Joining a nonprofit board

Honors & Awards

  • Top 100 Influencer in digital industry

    T3N Magazine and Next Conference

    http://t3n.de/news/100-wichtigsten-100-kopfe-455651/

  • TOP 100 Of The Most Influential Thought Leaders In Crowdfunding

    OurCrowd

    http://blog.ourcrowd.com/index.php/2014/01/22/100-of-the-most-influential-thought-leaders-in-crowdfunding-today/

  • Who is who in crowdfunding

    CrowdFundBeat

    Who’s Who of CrowdFunding Industry Professionals: http://crowdfundbeat.com/alphabetically-list-of-whos-who-in-crowdfunding-world/.

  • Top 15 Crowdsourcing Influencers – UK

    Crowdsourcing Week

    The top influencers in crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in the UK - http://crowdsourcingweek.com/top-crowdsourcing-experts-uk/?utm_content=buffer328f6.

  • Top Entrepreneur, Crowdfunding and VC Influencers in the World

    Madhater Agency

    #35 top influencer in the world, http://madhatteragency.com/the-500-entrepreneur-small-business-crowdfunding-and-venture-capital-influencers-all/.

  • The Essential List Of Crowd Economy Leaders & Influencers: The #Crowd411

    Crowdsourcing Week

    The most influential thinkers, doers and practitioners in the crowd economy:
    http://crowdsourcingweek.com/the-comprehensive-directory-on-crowd-economy-experts-crowd411/

Publications

Skills

Languages

  • English

    Full professional proficiency

  • Finnish

    Native or bilingual proficiency

  • Swedish

    Limited working proficiency

  • German

    Elementary proficiency

Education

Recommendations

A preview of what LinkedIn members have to say about Jouko:

  • Jouko is a truly global and inspiring entrepreneur, he lived and traveled almost all over the world, where he founded and invested in an impressive number of successful companies. Jouko is an innovator, always thinking ahead of the curve. Having started Grow VC in 2009, as the first international peer-to-peer micro-funding service for startups, he is a universally recognized though leader in FinTech and Alternative Finance. I am really glad to share this journey with him.
  • Jouko always sees the bigger picture and has the ability, patience and drive to see that his organisation gets there. During the initial launch of Crowdbaron, Jouko was able to help guide the business through complex marketplace issues. His experience and network is among the strongest I have seen and he is able to use these effectively to build businesses. His contributions have helped the growth of global crowdfunding, particularly in the areas of finance and online market places. I wish Jouko continued success and highly recommend him to any organisation seeking the highest level input on alternative finance models and crowdfunding.

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