Tampere Ambassadors today

-It’s a wonderful concept for any city willing to boost their attraction activities in different fields. The new concept has enabled bringing like-minded people and highly skilled professionals together in a unique and structured way. Regular interaction with the city and its highest decision-makers has connected the network more closely to the city strategy and shared goals regarding internationalization. It also helps in the highly valuable hidden marketing work that the Tampere Ambassadors do within their own fields, says Pekka Pernu, Program Manager of the Welcoming City program at the City of Tampere and Tampere Ambassadors program coordinator for 2020–2025.

The current concept is tightly linked with the objectives and the key indicators of the City of Tampere Strategy. According to the strategy, Tampere further develops its strong position as an international city of science and know-how by providing the best conditions for making the solutions of the future. Consequently, among the main objectives are investing in attracting international experts, strengthening the retention power, increasing Tampere’s attractiveness as a national and international student city, promoting the operating conditions of export-supporting growth ecosystems, and reinforcing the city’s attractiveness for international investment and high-end scientific congresses. 

So far, the City of Tampere and its key stakeholders are very active in attracting opportunities and the concept of Tampere Ambassadors helps in this, being much wider than just international talent attraction. At the same time the concept is light and simple which provides flexibility and efficiency.
The current Tampere Ambassadors program is divided into the four subprograms where there are about 40 Ambassadors in total.

Tampere Congress Ambassadors

Tampere University researchers, who have had a significant input in summoning and organising international congresses in Tampere. They work actively in scientific organisations and represent international top research in their respective fields. Tampere Congress Ambassadors represent Tampere University and local scientific know-how in their global networks. A new Tampere Congress Ambassador is chosen annually.

Tampere Alumni Ambassadors

Alumni of the Tampere higher education community, who have strong bonds to Tampere and valuable merits in their studies and work-life. They promote interaction between higher education institutions and the surrounding society, support teaching, research work, and international business cooperation. In addition, they help increase the international visibility of the City of Tampere and its higher education opportunities.

Tampere Talent Ambassadors

International experts of various fields, who have moved and settled in Tampere. They are mentors who promote the inclusion of international workforce and act as cultural interpreters between their countries of origin and the people in Tampere. They also provide information about Tampere – in Finland and abroad – as a good place for living, working, and studying.

Tampere Business Ambassadors

Influential and visionary professionals in international business, who actively use their networks to advocate Tampere's business ecosystems for investments and new business ideas. They have strong knowledge of the advantages provided by Tampere and are motivated to introduce these opportunities when travelling abroad. 

All the subprograms function independently but share certain similarities.
-It makes a lot of sense to connect people with a similar mission, people who share a love for Tampere and are not shy to say it out loud, says Pekka Pernu.
Among the four subprograms, “a love for Tampere” is the one universal selection criterion, along with the wish and potential to publicly share it with one's own professional and personal networks.

-Tampere is a great example of finding high calibre industrial companies coupled with fresh and new cluster technologies that will create a competitive edge for the future. In this city you find talented people, great technologies and have a world class environmental setting, admits Rene Graichen, Tampere Business Ambassador, COO, Plugit Ltd.

-Tampere is Finland condensed. It attracts both natives and foreigners from all around and puts them in a narrow isthmus between two beautiful lakes. Our 2 universities offer studies in almost all conceivable fields and work opportunities are plenty, even if sometimes hard to find if you don’t know where to look. Tampere is considered an attractive city even amongst Finns for being just the right size while still having the feel of a much bigger city, admits Antti Kalliomäki, Tampere Alumni Ambassador, Senior Advisor, WSP Finland Oy.

The Tampere Ambassadors concept is an example of an umbrella framework uniting different City units and coordinating their activities. Each subprogram is placed within a relevant City unit and has a part-time coordinator. Additionally, there is a general coordinator responsible for overall activities, ensuring interconnection among subprograms and aligning them with the broader picture.

Subprogram coordinators are experts in their fields, with wide networks and a deep understanding of selection criteria, pace of activities, and motivating factors. This enables the selection of the best candidates, building trust, and achieving sustainable results.

-I appreciate the professional support I am receiving in organizing the conference including everything from social venue reservations, brainstorming on activities to include in the programme to visuals for websites and promotional materials. It is overall very important that the City and the University work so tightly together in the context of such scientific megaevents. I feel I am in good, firm and experienced hands, says Nelli Piattoeva, Tampere Congress Ambassador, Professor, Sociology of Education, Tampere University.

Already before launching the present concept of Tampere Ambassadors program the previous experience showed that managing a network of top international experts committed to the City promotion and development on the voluntary basis has a great deal of diversity management and sustaining motivation. Ambassadors are busy people, this fact creates a special setting of coordinating any activity- not to overload, to provide maximum value, to stay on the same page with professionals from different fields and cultures, to achieve the program KPIs. Plenty of things to balance, plenty of things to track. This determines that coordination activities are efficient and often multifunctional, i.e. one activity hits many aims.

In this context the City has organised Mayoral luncheons and other networking opportunities for Tampere Ambassadors to get updates on the topical news of the City and get to know each other and key city stakeholders.

-From Tampere Ambassadors coordination team I appreciate at most the enabling of the possibility to meet people and network with the City, says Hemaka Abeywickrama Goonetilleke, Tampere Alumni Ambassador, Compliance Manager, Konecranes Oy.

Networking means a lot, it provides stable motivation and facilitates trust and horizontal collaborations between Ambassadors representing different subprograms.

As an example of the fruitful networking, in autumn 2021 started a collaboration between Modulight Oy, leading provider of laser solutions for personalised medicine, headed by Tampere Business Ambassador Seppo Orsila, and Bloom Ry, association for international talents integration in Tampere, headed by Tampere Talent Ambassador Kelly Keodara. The collaboration featured sponsorship of the association activities and co-organising Bloom Tech Forum.

Another result of successful networking is the Pulla Perjantai concept, which appeared in 2022 on top of collaboration between Tampere Talent Ambassadors, International House Tampere, and local industries. Now Pulla Perjantai is a monthly event linking Tampere companies and international talents to open and discuss Finnish hiring practices and workplace culture peculiarities.

In addition to the annual City updates and networking Mayoral event, the Tampere Ambassadors coordination uses digital channels to spread the information – send the surveys, info packages, and individual invitations to participate in the activities. Subprogram coordinators are always in touch and ready to help. Smooth and fast communication with no delays is another very crucial success factor in managing Ambassadors' projects.

-Open communication and creativity of the team to get things organized are the two things I value the most from Tampere Ambassadors coordination team, says Rene Graichen.

Of course, inside Tampere Ambassadors there are more tailor-made activities than the above-mentioned common and universal ones. Each subprogram forms its own schedule. For example, Tampere Talent Ambassadors subprogram has monthly face-to-face events of different sorts. Some of these events aim for the City branding when the Ambassadors enjoy the husky ride, floating sauna experience or the rooftop tour, actively sharing social media publications afterward. Some events are focused on international talent integration service design, some are pure community-building activities, some are focused on updating Talent Ambassadors about the International House Tampere news. Also, Talent Ambassadors are often individually invited to speak at the events, consult foreigners, give interviews, and participate in thematic photography or video projects about promoting Tampere.

Business Ambassadors might have financial and information support in organizing international business missions:

-We organized a presentation of around 10 local companies together with Business Tampere in Germany to create business relations and introduce new technologies to Agricultural global companies such as AGCO, says Rene Graichen.

Alumni Ambassadors receive assistance in promoting Tampere and get visibility sharing their experiences as a former students:

-I was invited to a podcast session at TAMK to discuss socio-cultural differences to be understood as an international student in Finland and on the importance of learning Finnish, recalls Hemaka Abeywickrama.

-I’ve managed to combine both being a Tampere Alumni Ambassador and working in an international consulting company. I get to promote our company to students while also getting to promote our students and universities to our international customers and partners, says Antti Kalliomäki.

Very often a brand new activity is co-created on the edge of the City resources and the Ambassador’ strengths and opportunities. The concept is a living entity which means that new formats appear constantly. The task of the coordination is to balance hard and soft components, to motivate and stay open and flexible linking both ends for the benefit of the program’ aims and the City development. At this point no doubts that new ideas and formats will arise soon and some new transformations will come in resonance with the new trends, global and local political and economical streams and based on the experiences analyzing.

In the next publication let’s focus on the future of Tampere Ambassadors!

Stay tuned and inspired! 
Exciting news coming!

More information on Talent Ambassador program and activities:

Natalia Gromova
Tel. +358 44 2370 594
Email: [email protected]