Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Angel

Markko Vaarnas is specialized in internationalizing B2B software and service companies. His experience accumulates from Global Intelligence Alliance Group (GIA), a company he co-founded in 1995 and successfully exited in late 2014. At the time that the company was sold, GIA had 10 offices across 4 continents, and a vast majority of the 15 mEUR revenue came from outside its home market, Finland.

In January 2015, Markko co-founded Takeoff Partners with the mission to create positive impact to people and the society by helping business owners to grow their businesses internationally. He executes this mission through serving as a part-time advisor, coach and angel investor for growth companies, as well as a consultant and interim leader for targeted internationalization projects and programs.

In his various roles, he wants to share his experiences on how to internationalize B2B software and service business, and more specifically help companies to build strategic business plans, conceptualize offerings, improve customer experiences, raise finance and facilitate the implementation of new market entries.

During his time at GIA, Markko became one of the global thought leaders in Market Intelligence. He is the author of the book “The Handbook of Market Intelligence” published by Wiley in September 2011, and has presented and facilitated workshops in numerous international conferences. http://bit.ly/HandbookMI

Markko graduated from the Helsinki School of Economics with a Master's degree (International Business). He is married with three children, and speaks fluent English and Finnish, and is also able to converse in German and Swedish. In his free time he enjoys playing soccer and coaches a junior soccer team.