Harri Salomaa

I am Harri Salomaa, a technologist of long standing and a recent returnee to Finland. My working life took me abroad for more than twenty years — first to Germany, then for nearly a decade to Silicon Valley, and most recently to Austin, Texas. I moved back to Finland in early 2025 and retired from full-time work in April 2026. I have not managed to step aside entirely: I continue to serve on boards and to advise companies, particularly on artificial intelligence.

My career began at Nokia as a software engineer working on mobile networks, and over the years I moved on to lead product development and business in network management. During the Silicon Valley years I was, among other things, a director of product development at HP and chief technology officer of a startup. My last large role was at Tietoevry, where I led the digital engineering business of nearly ten thousand professionals. After returning to Finland I built the business development and sales of the AI company NestAI through its first year of growth, and I continue as an adviser to it. Learning has not stopped in retirement either — I recently completed studies in artificial intelligence and machine learning at Berkeley and MIT.

My dearest souvenir from abroad, though, is music. In 2012 three Finnish IT professionals founded a rock band in Silicon Valley, named after the initials of its founders — Vesa Heiskanen, Ari Valtanen and myself: VHS. When the guitarist Ari Flink joined, ”era” was added and VHSera was born — a new era, with influences reaching back to the age of VHS tapes. Over the years we played at many events of the Finnish community in the Valley, from the Finnish School to the Finnish Church, and we had the honour of performing at the centenary celebrations of Finland’s independence. The pandemic years prompted us to dig our own songs out of the drawer, and so the band began making original music too.

These days I enjoy life in Finland: there is finally time for family, for music and for everything that the busy working years crowded out. I still follow the development of artificial intelligence with great enthusiasm — now on my own terms.