– I am from Kokkola and went to Turku to study data processing at the University of Åbo Akademi. During my studies I participated in a project through which I got in touch with Dresden, Germany, and I went to work there for a few years. When I returned back to Turku I continued my studies and worked remotely to Germany. Then my family and I moved back to Kokkola, I continued working remotely and often had lunch with the people from Raisoft. Very soon JJ (Johan Jansson, CTO) asked if I was interested in working as a programmer for Raisoft. First I worked as a sole trader but quite soon I stopped working remotely to Germany and started working full time at Raisoft.
As a fun trivia Jan tells us how his and Magnus Nygård´s (Raisoft´s User Interface Developer) paths have crossed already since the day they were born.
– We are born around the same time and our mothers shared the same room in the hospital. Magnus and I shared the same squad room when we were doing our army service. When we were studying at the Uni we shared the same cell apartment and Magnus started working at Raisoft just before me.
For years Jan has been in charge of the Swiss customer accounts –everything from customer contacts to coding. After a few years of language "immersion" he understands and reads German fluently but leaves the talking to someone else.
– Raisoft´s partner in Switzerland is Q-Sys AG. They serve our customers in Switzerland and I make sure that the program works as it should in German.
In late summer 2019 Jan´s role grew from Switzerland to global as CEO Robert Åström needed somebody by his side who knows RAIsoft inside and out.
– I started as the Chief Customer Officer for international sales, which means that I am in charge of all the international customer accounts and of our international team. My job has just begun and I am still finding the course but luckily, we have a professional self-motivated and driven team.
– I haven´t entirely stopped programming for Switzerland yet, but at some point it will come to that.
At home Jan has his partner Minna and 3 boys.
– My son is 10 and Minna´s boys are 9 and 8. It´s a busy bunch and the boy´s hobbies dictate the everyday life to a great extent. The two oldest play football and I´m the team manager of my son´s soccer team.
Jan describes his own hobbies as plain.
– Biking and jogging, nothing more exciting than that. In the summer we spend a lot of time at the summer cottage and I´m no stranger to a hammer and a saw. Last summer I built a patio.
Jan also finds it important to take care of his parents who are both in their mid-80´s.
– I am the golden years-child. My big brother is 12 years older than me. My father was a salesman at a hardware store and when he retired, he decided to continue the family tradition and built himself a blacksmith shop. His grandad was a smith by profession. My mother was a grade school teacher. They still live at home. My father is in good shape and helps my mom who is wheel-chair bound since a few years ago.