Mr. Matti Makkonen

Born in Suomussalmi, Finland, he is an engineer in the field of Mobile Communications. He has been employed (among others) by Nokia Networks and Tele Finland, as well as Finnet. He played a leading role in creating the mobile communication unit of what is today TeliaSonera, the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in Sweden and Finland. He graduated as an Electrical Engineer from the Oulu Technical College in 1976. Subsequently, he worked at the Telecoms and Postal agency (PTL) as a Systems Engineer, developing wireless communications services for the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) mobile networks (1976?1983). He was the Vice President of PTL from 1984?1988; when, it opened its Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) service, including text messaging. He became the President of the Mobile Communication Unit in 1989, which had been renamed Telecom Finland. He also served as the Vice President of the Mobile Communications Group from 1995?2000. In 2000, he was briefly the President and Board member of the Mobile Internet Operator unit of the company, which at that point had been renamed Sonera. As of November 2000, he joined Nokia Networks Professional Services as the Units Director. He later became the CEO of Finnet Oy in February 2003, a position which he held until October 31, 2005. At the beginning of 2006, he served as a Board member and consultant for Tieto-X and the PR agency Evia.