"The EMBA gave me tremendous courage and confidence in my own abilities.”

Leena Soininen
Chief Physician, Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa

Leena Soininen works as a Chief Physician at HUS, the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa. A medical doctor and university docent by training, Soininen has focused most of her career on healing. Approximately five years ago, however, Soininen found herself in a managerial position with some 20-30 doctors to supervise. To her surprise, she enjoyed her new work immensely.

“My interest towards the business side of the hospital world grew sharply. I took part in some business studies arranged for doctors, but I wanted more,” she explains.

“My supervisor suggested I look into an EMBA. I started asking around and Aalto was recommended to me by a number of people. After finishing my EMBA at Aalto EE I understand all the ardent recommendations – it really is an exceptional program,” Soininen affirms.

“For me, the EMBA was a journey to widen my world view. I found the learning methods very effective, and looking back, everything we were taught was beneficial. There was nothing unnecessary or uninteresting in the curriculum,” she asserts.

Soininen praises the Self Development Process highly, calling it the backbone of the entire program, but emphasizes that she found every module useful and interesting.

“Of course certain modules stood out: study tours abroad at Stanford and Harvard were extremely valuable, and the strategy module changed my perspective completely – us doctors have a bad habit of dismissing strategy as gibberish, but after this module I not only understood the value of strategy but also knew how to communicate it to others,” Soininen describes.

She says studies dealing with finance and economics were tough for her, because her prior education had not even touched upon these topics – but this also made these modules particularly interesting and rewarding.

“The economics module especially was marvelous,” Soininen thanks. She underlines that put together, her studies and the EMBA group had such an impact, they changed her as a person.

The EMBA gave me tremendous courage and confidence in my own abilities. I now know my strengths and how I need to improve. ”

“I feel that one of the greatest values of Aalto EMBA is the fact that you learn in a group and overcome challenges together. Our group was exceptionally good; we worked together so well and over the course of our studies, the group became an extended family of sorts,” Soininen reminisces.

“The EMBA gave me tremendous courage and confidence in my own abilities. I now know my strengths and how I need to improve. I have wider shoulders to take things forward, and I have the competence to achieve my goals. All this definitely shows in my everyday work,” she adds.

Soininen still works for HUS as a chief physician. From the beginning of 2017 she has been in charge of a large internal project to build a counselling service for people with sudden health problems.

“I am extremely enthusiastic about the project. I have quite free hands to push the vision forward, and I have been able to utilize all the valuable things I learned during my studies at Aalto EE. This is a job I could not do without my EMBA education. My employer paid for my degree and I know it was a good investment – the benefits reaped so far already surpass the costs of my studies,” she points out.

Soininen says that the EMBA gave her a great deal more than she ever considered possible.

“I certainly wish to endorse Aalto EMBA. I warmly recommend it to anyone who is ready to change as a person, and eager to change things in their own industry. These studies are highly demanding, but the payback is great. I feel that the more you throw yourself into the experience the more rewarding it is.”

Aalto Executive MBA