Juho Latvala: Finnish-born Norwegian

Juho ended up working at ABAX when a Headhunter found him on a Facebook group called ‘Finns living in Oslo’. Now he’s working as an Account Manager and Team Leader in the Portfolio department in ABAX.

Stockholm became Larvik

Juho had always wanted life abroad. After studying, he first planned to move to Stockholm, but (according to his own words), with happy coincidences, he ended up in Oslo. Whilst living in Oslo, a Headhunter found Juho and suggested working for ABAX in Larvik.

"I thought that I would live in a small village like Larvik for about half a year...however, I ended up living there for almost four years!"

Juho has been working at ABAX for just over four years. He started his ABAX career at the headquarters in Larvik, where he became part of ABAX Finland's very small sales team. For the first few months, his job was to contact potential customers and book sales meetings for sellers. Soon, however, a position opened in the Finnish customer service department, which he gladly accepted.

From Customer Service to Team Leader

A couple of years later, Juho internally applied for a portfolio manager role. He started his new assignment in February and is now working at the Finnish office in Vantaa, as Portfolio Team Leader and Account Manager.

"I thought that the task would be at headquarters, but soon I realised it would require moving to Finland".

"The return to Finland seemed, at first, unrealistic, however I am glad that I have a good work situation, and I get to be close to my family."

Juho was chosen to work almost immediately. He has excellent product knowledge and is a great customer service agent who solves problems quickly.

"My supervisor supported my transition into more challenging tasks as I was already so experienced within customer service."

As Account Manager, Juho's job is to ensure that our customers are satisfied with our service, resolve any service and contractual issues and ensure that our customers continue to want to be our customers. Juho also educates and supports our customers in the use of our products and services.

A person who takes action

Juho often starts his day on the train on his way to the office in Vantaa.

"Very often I check my emails while commuting to work. I start my day by checking messages from oldest to newest."

Juho takes care of customers and his team.

"I train and encourage my team members daily. I take care in ensuring that they are all well and that tasks get done. I also visit our customers from time to time. I especially like doing this because I feel like I'm in my element when I meet people face-to-face."

There are a lot of challenges in his daily work, but for him the most challenging task is sales.

"I tend to devour customer service responsibilities, which has a negative impact on completing my sales task. I don’t like it if I have a bunch of unfinished tasks. I like to take action and complete tasks straight away. I especially don’t like if I have pending tasks, particularly if it’s a customer waiting for a response from me."

The best thing about ABAX is the people

"The best thing about my job is working with people, seeing my team's successes and failures first hand!"