HiQ announces today that the tech-consultancy firm appoints Janne Ahonen as the new Managing Director of Helsinki based HiQ Finland and the digital commerce specialist Lamia, that was acquired in 2021. This marks the start of an integration between the two organizations that share many synergies, bringing an even stronger offer to the local market. “I’m very happy to welcome Janne onboard and to the team! Janne’s impressive and extensive experience in the consulting industry, where he’s held multiple leading positions, will bring tremendous amounts of value to HiQ. Janne has many years of experience behind him from different management roles, a skill set that will be a great addition. Any company needs to have a sharp offer in place in this uncertain market. With Janne at the helm of HiQ Finland and Lamia, we will continue to build and develop our offering locally,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

Janne Ahonen has a MSc. degree in Finance from the Helsinki School of Economics and holds a long career within IT and Digital Business, with a stronghold in the Financial Services Sector. He most recently held a role as Country Manager Finland & Baltics at Atos, where he has been overseeing operations in Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania. Before that, Janne held other leading positions, such as Partner EMEIA Financial Services at Ernst & Young and a distinguished 17-year career at Accenture.

“Having worked for many years in the IT consulting industry, it’s very exciting for me to become a part of HiQ. I’ve admired HiQ for many years and have always been impressed by the high level of innovation and creativity whilst keeping at the technical forefront. I’ve kept a close eye on the development of the group over the last couple of years. The company culture really stands out, something I’m looking forward to experiencing firsthand. I also look forward to contributing with my experience and expertise and, more importantly, to join the team at the beginning of 2023,” says Janne Ahonen.

Joining HiQ, Janne Ahonen will head up HiQ Finland and Lamia and drive the integration work to further leverage the strengths and synergies of the two organizations, continue sharpening the local offerings and lead the teams in creating value for new and existing clients. The Finnish region within the HiQ Group, that consists of HiQ Finland, Lamia and integration platform Frends, is a strong one with great employees, a solid company culture and a broad client base. Jukka Rautio has held the Managing Director role for HiQ Finland and Lamia interim for a few months and will now focus solely on being the Head of HiQ’s iPaaS business Frends, where the focus is to expand and scale up the business globally.

“I’m very excited to continue my journey with HiQ with a full focus on Frends. I will always cherish the Finnish organization and the group as we enter this new era for the Finnish region. We will continue to build the powerhouse Frends is growing into and capitalize on all the capabilities we have built up in recent years. Our focus and goals remain the same: we will continue to grow our client base globally, we have recently started investing heavily in APAC, for example. At the same time, we operate globally, growing our client base worldwide. And we will always work closely with HiQ Finland and Lamia as we create a sharper offer and strive to be an even more important player in Northern Europe,” says Jukka Rautio, Head of HiQ’s Frends.

Janne Ahonen starts his new role on January 1st, 2023.

HiQ signs a framework agreement with the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency (Kammarkollegiet) for IT consulting services in Architecture and Development. The agreement is one of five areas in a large procurement for IT consulting services. HiQ won four in total in the procurement. “I’m proud that we are signing this framework agreement with the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency, and that we have won four out of five areas in the procurement! We look forward to continuing our work to digitize the public sector in Sweden. Our goal is to support communities and organizations as much as possible on their continued digitization journey,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

The framework agreement is signed with the National Procurement Services (Statens Inköpscentral) at the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency. Their mission is to efficiently procure and provide coordinated framework agreements for goods and services that government agencies regularly procure on a large scale or of high value. As procurement is coordinated nationally, the signing of the framework agreement means that HiQ will be able to deliver to a large proportion of Sweden’s central government agencies.

“I am very pleased that we are signing this framework agreement and that we can continue to help the public sector. The fact that we are gaining greater trust proves that what we do is good and of high quality,” says Simon Jansson, Head of Public Sales at HiQ Region Stockholm.

The sub-area Architecture and Development is the largest tender area in the procurement, with an estimated turnover of 2.4 billion SEK over four (4) years, within System Development, System Management, Architects and Testing. The framework agreement also includes the competencies: database design and administration, enterprise architecture, infrastructure architecture, configuration and version control, solution architecture, software architecture, system integration, system development, testing, test management, business architecture and web development. The framework agreement is in partnership with several other stakeholders. The other areas that HiQ won in the procurement are IT in Operations, Security in IT and IT projects, and IT Consulting Solutions.

Karriärföretagen annually appoints employers in Sweden who offer unique career and development opportunities for newly graduated students and young professionals. For the fourth year in a row, HiQ is named Karriärföretag 2023 with the statement that the company continues to carry out very attractive employer branding work. “It's great that Karriärföretagen recognizes our work. We work with exciting assignments at the technological forefront and continue to develop our strong corporate culture. We believe in that, and know it leads to a good employer brand. I’m especially proud that our trainee program, HiQ Leap, launched at the beginning of 2022, and our partnership with Women in Tech Sweden are also being recognized,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

Karriärföretagen is an annual award where Sweden’s most attractive employers are selected and may call themselves a Karriärföretag. This applies to employers offering unique career and development opportunities for students and young professionals. The purpose is to guide students or those who have recently started working to a good start in their careers and reward companies’ successful employer branding work. For the fourth year in a row, HiQ has been named Karriärföretag 2023 with the statement:

HiQ continues its very attractive employer branding work and is, for the fourth year in a row, a Karriärföretag. With its playful communication, breadth of activities and development opportunities, HiQ is definitely a workplace that attracts young talent. Not least with its rapidly growing trainee program, HiQ Leap, and commitment to Women in Tech. An inspiring employer just right in time.

“Graduates and young professionals make up the tech industry of the future, so they are important groups for all companies in the industry. We look forward to welcoming those who want to work with leading-edge tech, IT, integration, design, and communication to a good workplace with fantastic company culture,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

To be appointed a Karriärföretag, the company must meet several essential criteria. An expert panel of specialists then reviews the company in HR, web, career counselling, marketing, and social media. The expert panel then rates the employers and those who receive the highest score move on to the next step. Finally, a jury selects the top employers for next year’s Karriärföretag.

HiQ is constantly looking for new stars who want to join and help simplify the world with tech, design, and creativity. Do you want to join us on our journey? Apply today: hiq.se/jobb

Read more about Karriärföretagen:

https://karriarforetagen.se

Software company Zenseact, which develops autonomous driving, needs help scaling its offering and making it easy to integrate into other car models than what is currently being used. HiQ works with Zenseact to realize the project. “The future is autonomous. We see rapid development in autonomous, and at HiQ we have broad experience in autonomous driving. Such as software solutions for trucks, buses, cars, and vehicles for the mining industry. With the software’s help, we develop both safer and more precise vehicles. With a proactive approach and always being one step ahead, it is not uncommon for a function or feature to be developed, even before requested. We are happy to work together with Zenseact to develop a safer world,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

Zenseact is a software company developing autonomous driving (AD) and driver assistance systems (ADAS). Zenseact envisions a world with zero vehicle collisions, which is captured by the company’s motto: Towards zero faster. Zero collisions, zero fatalities. The way to achieve that vision is by deploying the software in as many vehicles as possible.

Zenseact needs help to make its software offering scalable and easy to integrate into other car models. Zenseact’s main product, OnePilot, is the application that will ultimately run in the customer cars and perform AD/ADAS functions. HiQ helps develop the Integration Suite, a software meant for integrators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that want to integrate OnePilot in other cars, from scratch and supporting Zenseact’s partners to integrate OnePilot in their vehicles. The Integration Suite is a complex product, touching almost all parts of OnePilot.

“I usually talk about the team from HiQ as one of our best-case scenarios when it comes to our bought services. We are very pleased with the team’s performance and that everything works quite smoothly,” says Mehrnush Ostad, Department Manager at Zenseact.

The HiQ team works cross-functionally across competence areas and geographical regions. The team handles everything from setting up hardware, hands-on testing and debugging to high-level tasks like software architecture, system analysis and optimization. Additionally, a part of the team is involved in Zenseact’s API governance group, a formal decision forum tasked with overseeing Zenseact’s public APIs.

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