CV — Tapio Pitkäranta
Save as PDF from the print dialog for best results
Tapio Pitkäranta
TAPIO
PITKÄRANTA
Head of AI Development — hands-on GenAI leader building intelligent systems that drive business growth
Contact
LinkedIn Profile
linkedin.com/in/tapio-pitkaranta
GitHub: longshoreforrest
Phone: +358 50 540 8550
(SMS if not reachable)
Email: tapio.pitkaranta@iki.fi
Europe, Finland
Runonlaulajantie 50 A
00420 Helsinki
Education
M.Sc. and Lic.Sc. (Tech.) in Software Systems (thesis grades 5/5), 25+ international publications on applied ML/AI and GenAI
Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University)
PhD in Generative AI (defense Q3/2026)
Aalto University
Language Skills
Finnish: mother tongue
English: excellent
German: working proficiency
Swedish: working proficiency
Strengths
  • Analytical thinking
  • Goal-driven and persistent
  • Leadership skills
  • Strategic thinking in big picture
  • Innovative approaches
Recommendations
Funding Rounds
  • Participated into funding rounds and technical DD's at RELEX and Aibidia
  • RELEX 2015, RELEX 2017, RELEX 2019, Aibidia 2022
Summary

My passion is helping organizations harness Generative AI and LLM-based solutions to create real business impact. I keep my hands on modern technology — from building AI agent architectures to writing production code.

4× CTO across four sectors — retail (RELEX Solutions, scaled to unicorn), healthcare (Hifian, founder), tax (Aibidia) and HR (TalentAdore). With 20+ years also spanning research, high-tech entrepreneurship, and senior leadership in energy, I bring both deep technical understanding and the ability to translate GenAI capabilities into scalable products. I have made 200+ recruitment decisions and led teams up to 150 people across 11 international locations.

I am currently finishing a PhD at Aalto University on Software Agents and Generative AI, with a Best Paper Award from PCSI 2025 and a 2nd Best Paper Award from CHIRA 2025.

Professional Experience
Head of AI Development — Siili Solutions, 2025 – Current
  • Head of AI Development in the Digital Engineering Business Line, leading hands-on GenAI initiatives and bridging business expertise with AI and LLM-based solutions.
  • Previously AI Principal (Sep 2025 – Jan 2026), applying data science methods and fostering efficient, well-structured ways of working.
Aalto University, 2024 – Q3/2026 (Expected) [PhD in Gen AI]
  • PhD dissertation on Software Agents and Generative Artificial Intelligence. Pre-examination comments received; finalizing the manuscript by June 2026; public defense and approval scheduled for Q3/2026. Five conference papers published in H2/2025.
  • Best paper award from PCSI 2025 conference on AI agents and second best paper award from CHIRA 2025 on LLMs and agents.
  • Over 25 international publications in the fields of artificial intelligence and advanced analytics.
CTO @ TalentAdore, 2024 Feb – 2025 April [HR Sector]
  • Organization: Transformed distributed outsourced R&D organization to Helsinki focused on-site team with 15 employees. Developed the Engineering and Product organization to enable SaaS platform GenAI transform. Reporting on technology strategy and R&D outcomes to the CEO and Board.
  • AI: Implemented Large Language Model (LLM) AI features on AWS for hundreds of production customers processing personal information data. Team deployed advanced GenAI design patterns such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) into production use.
  • Data & Analytics: Designed and implemented a multi-tenant data analytics platform on AWS, leveraging a column-oriented data layout to enable high-performance OLAP processing. Achieved a 15x improvement in query speed compared to the previous analytics solution.
CTO @ Aibidia, 2020 – 2023 [Tax Sector]
  • Organization: During my tenure, Aibidia achieved a 30x increase in SaaS revenue, while the workforce expanded sixfold, reaching approximately 60 employees. My R&D organization comprised 35 employees who transformed the product and technology from a proof of concept (PoC) into a robust SaaS platform, successfully sold to some of the largest enterprises in the world. I reported on technology strategy and R&D outcomes to the Board and actively contributed to the company's Series A funding round, which raised 13 million euros.
  • Security: Led projects to obtain information security certifications, including ISO 27001 and SOC2 / ISAE 3000 Type II.
  • Data & Analytics: Implemented a multi-tenant analytics platform on Microsoft Azure, integrating a full business intelligence (BI) stack including SQL Server, Data Factory, Power BI, and Pyramid Analytics to deliver scalable, enterprise-grade reporting and insights.
  • AI: Implemented machine learning and artificial intelligence features on Microsoft Azure.
Examples of International Experience
  • Aibidia: 50+ public cloud Azure projects
  • TietoEvry: Large projects 10 M€ … 300 M€
  • RELEX: 250+ software projects, 5000+ IT integrations
  • Scandinavian healthcare funding projects
  • Giving speeches in Research conferences
Start-Up and Entrepreneurship Experience
  • Contributed in growing RELEX from 10 persons to 600 persons
  • Contributed growing Aibidia from PoC to enterprise grade SaaS
  • Hifian
  • LNG Inside
Personal
Wife and three kids
Interests
  • Friends, Family, Nature
  • Cycling, Floorball, Jogging
  • Books, Podcasts
  • Challenging and developing my own thinking via discussions and writing
Military Service
  • Served as a Second Lieutenant in the Finnish Defence Forces, specializing in the Navy Coastal Infantry, akin to Navy Seals (1998–1999)
  • Led and managed diverse teams up to 400 people in dynamic scenarios
Head of AI, Chief Data Architect @ TietoEvry, 2019 – 2020 [Healthcare Sector]
  • Organizational: Reported to CTO during Tieto and EVRY merger (24,000 employees). Participated in RFP's up to 300 M€+ in budget.
  • Healthcare Data Lake: Implemented one of the world's largest healthcare data lakes on public cloud, integrating data from 50+ IT systems including Epic (Apotti).
  • ML & AI: Worked with healthcare customers in international market to enable data and AI driven transformations on Microsoft Azure.
  • Data & Analytics: Delivered Microsoft Azure data platforms for large hospitals (Data Factory, Power BI, Databricks). Published most accurate Covid forecasts in Nordics.
CTO @ RELEX, 2015 – 2019 [Retail Sector]
  • Organization: Between 2015 and 2019 company size grew from around 100 person to 600 employees. My DevOps organization (“Solutions”) grew from 30 persons to 150 person covering 17 technical teams. Teams were distributed into 11 locations working on assignments ranging from development teams, quality assurance, technical delivery of more than 200 international software projects, support and infrastructure platform.
  • Cloud platform: Our teams constructed enterprise level cloud service ranging from midmarket to largest Tier I customers. Platform consists of ~300,000 GB or RAM and 20,000 processor cores.
  • Technologies: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, SLA's, Information Security ISO27001 and SOC2, IMDB, In-memory-databases, Dashboards and Mobile application development. Public cloud, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud.
  • Data & Analytics: Developed end-to-end data pipelines from customer systems to the internal data platform. Configured and fine-tuned machine learning models to improve forecasting accuracy and optimize supply chain replenishment cycles.
Technical Director @ RELEX, 2011 – 2014 [Retail Sector]
  • Organization: During these years company size grew from 30 employees to around 100 employees. I created & recruited a DevOps organization ranging from development teams, quality assurance, agile technical project delivery to customer 24/7 support covering all of companies markets.
  • Data & Analytics: Developed end-to-end data pipelines from customer systems to the internal data platform. Configured and fine-tuned machine learning models to improve forecasting accuracy and optimize supply chain replenishment cycles.
Senior Engineering Lead @ RELEX, 2008 – 2010 [Retail Sector]
  • High-tech startup grew from about 10 to about 30 employees.
  • Participated into product development, performance improvements, architectural design, database design, managed important projects, developed service business development and designed foundations for infrastructure as a service platform (IaaS).
Co-Founder of LNG Inside Technologies Oy, 2013–2014 [Energy Sector]
  • Won 1st prize in innovation competition (100k€) in group of three persons.
  • Founded a part-time startup focusing in Marine LNG and got funding for 10 M€ LNG ship conversion project for a customer.
  • Oil price decline in 2014 changed market investment capability and we decided to ramp down the company.
CTO, Head of AI, Founder — Hifian Oy, 2008–2013 [Healthcare Sector, Research]
  • Data & Analytics: Lead contributor in developing a national-level hospital analytics platform that integrated financial cost data with clinical activities into meaningful groupings. The platform's outcomes were adopted for hospital invoicing across Finland, supporting accurate and standardized billing.
  • Reported results in national and international conferences on healthcare analytics.
  • Technologies: Python, Java, PostgreSQL, scikit, R, SPSS, SQL, Python, Apache Spark, GPU calculation, AWS, Azure, Linux.
Software Architect @ Datawell Oy, 2005–2008 [Healthcare Sector]
  • Data & Analytics: Healthcare Nordic hospital cost per patient analytics combining clinical and financial data.
  • R&D: Product development software architect. Data warehouse projects, extract transform load (ETL) systems. Technologies: Python, Java, J2EE, JavaScript, MS SQL, MySQL, C, C++, .NET, Windows Server, WSDL, SOAP, Web Services.
Research Scientist @ Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), 2001–2005 [Research]
  • International artificial intelligence research projects & conferences. Software agents, semantic web, data mining, machine learning.
  • Design and implementation of distributed mobile systems.
  • Technologies: Java, Symbian, Machine learning, Software agents, Web Crawling, GPS, SOAP, Web Services, Python.