Event speakers

Christer became CEO of Paf 2016 and has over 19 years experience in the online gaming industry. Previously Christer was an entrepreneur and management consultant with Bain & Co.

Olli Sarekoski is the President and CEO of Veikkaus Oy, the Finnish national money gaming company. Veikkaus Oy holds the exclusive right to operate all gambling in Finland.  Olli has been leading Veikkaus as a CEO since 2017 but has an extensive twenty years of history with Veikkaus as he joined already in 2003.  Prior to his present post, he held different executive positions in business operations, strategy and planning. Additionally, Olli holds the Supervisory Chair of the European Lotteries Responsible Gaming and Sustainability Working Group, and he has also acted as the chairman of the board of Lotteries Entertainment Innovation Alliance (LEIA).

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Mika Kuismanen is the CEO for the Finnish Trade Association for Online Gambling. Mika earned Ph.D in economics from the University College London. He has previously worked, among others,

as an Executive Vice-President and Chief Economist at the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, Director at the Ministry of Finance and Senior Economist at the Bank of Finland

and European Central Bank. In addition, Kuismanen has worked as a consultant for the European Commission and he also has a background as an entrepreneur.

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Jari has worked in the gambling industry for a long time. At the beginning of 2020, Jari co-founded a consulting company specializing in gambling called The Finnish Gambling Consultants (FGC). FGC has helped dozens of operators, suppliers, and some start-up companies worldwide develop their gambling operations further. Jari has followed and analyzed the development of the Finnish gambling system for years.

Jaakko has an extensive background in business and tech and holds an MBA. He jumped into iGaming in 2020 and learned the industry leading customer operations at Finnplay. From 2021, Jaakko has been leading Finnplay as Managing Director. Helping the company achieve record growth while fulfilling his vision of customer-centric operations. He has also overseen the company’s exit from unregulated markets after acquisition by Entain PLC.

Mikael Bäcke has been the CEO of Bet25 since August 2019. Bet25 is a Danish gambling operator offering sports and horse betting both online and offline, as well as online casino services. Before his role as CEO at Bet25, Mikael served as the Chief Product and Business Development Officer at the Swedish gambling operator ATG. Mikael has over 10 years of experience in the iGaming industry and has also held various positions within the media industry.

Timo Kiiskinen is Managing Director of Fennica Gaming Ltd since January 2022 when the entity has established and started international B2B operation. Since that he and his fellow fennicans has exported Veikkaus Ltd Game portfolios and business knowledgement for Lotteries around the world. The start of this Veikkaus daughter company has been successful and more are coming. He has strong background in several industries to business development and operations, digitalization of business and deployment of new technologies. As a part of his career Timo has led RAY business operations and Veikkaus TECH organization. There are also years in various roles in both publishing and TV businesses, tech companies and as entrepreneur.

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Payments and fintech specialist with expertise in account-to-account (open banking) and carrier billing payments, user verification (KYC) and identity solutions across different industries (online gambling, video gaming, eCommerce) gained in various management and commercial roles. For the last 10 years, Vasilije has been leading the gaming commercial department of Trustly, the global leader in account-to-account payments, as well as various innovative product and business development initiatives, such as the launch of Trustly's flagship Pay N Play product, AgeVerify, NameVerfiy, InBanner and others. Prior to Trustly, Vasilije was in different commercial and business development roles in the information security and telecommunications industries.

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Dainis is the Chief Operating Officer for North and Central Europe at Entain, bringing nearly 20 years of experience in the gambling and entertainment industry. He specializes in marketing, operations, and business development, and holds an Executive MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics.

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Minna Ripatti is a Finnish Attorney at Law who has over 13 years of experience in the iGaming sector. Minna has lived in Austria, Switzerland, and Malta for over 12 years and worked in the iGaming industry. As the Founding Partner of Legal Gaming Attorneys Law, she specializes in providing legal services to clients in the iGaming sector.

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