Co-founder Tuomas Riski took Finnish cleantech company Norsepower from start-up to vessels equipped with innovative rotor sails as he bid to shift the maritime industry towards its net zero goal. He stepped down as CEO in May 2024.

My first career was in an interesting IT company where I was a key player and we took the company from five people to a publicly listed company in Finland.

I joined in 2001 as a summer work student at Helsinki University of Technology and also at the same time at Helsinki School of Economics.

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We were developing web technology and I quickly became a project manager alongside my studies and then vice president responsible for sales and deliveries.

We used to say that the reason why companies existed was to maximise the wealth of the shareholders and that’s what I could see in the firm.

The CEO helped to bring great staff to the company and I helped to make that happen. What I didn’t like were that the values were all money motivated. I preferred companies with a bigger mission in the world and money shouldn’t be the only driver.

My boss, Sami, was efficient at executing tasks, working hard and showed an example of arriving at the office at 6am and back at home at 7pm. It’s not my style but I understand people who are heavily motivated by their work.

The leadership was execution oriented. We took projects one by one and made sure we worked to deadlines to make sure we got it done.

The company was selling software to public authorities in Finland and they had very official procurement processes. We implemented and executed an excellent process of how to reply to those requests to tender documents, that we fulfilled every requirement they needed and we had a higher chance to win the procurement. I learned a great deal on how to plan.

It was organic, acquisition-based growth. What I also learned was that it was a very good way to grow these companies and integrate by acquiring other businesses — we acquired five other IT companies. In the end we became a bigger company and started to acquire smaller firms.

Joining a fast-growing company, it was important to follow how things were done, to learn from the successes and mistakes and, more importantly, not to be a CEO running the business.

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Sometimes he liked to control too much, interested in details and on top of everything. When the company became bigger, it became a challenge, with the boss being detail oriented. On the other hand, he was great at developing well-worked processes. The company still exists and I made an exit after it had grown to more than 250 employees.

Norsepower was founded in 2012 as I started to actively look for a clean tech company which would do good for the planet; as well as for the shareholders, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I have faith we can solve this through technology. In our case we manufactured mechanical sails and the investment from ship owners is paid back through the reduction of fuel costs and emissions compliance with regulation.

I happened to meet a team including a famous Naval architect, and we decided to develop the Norsepower Rotor Sail, the leading mechanical sail for large ships — tankers, gas and bulk carriers, ferries — to the market. I’m an enthusiastic sailor and have experience with ships from the Navy as well as a physics background, which seemed like a great business combination.

We are now the leading provider of mechanical sails in the world, having raised more than €40m (£33.7m) and built a rotor sail factory in China which will be able to make 100 sails a year.

The fact that we are benefiting the planet is the most important value for me today. I tried to highlight this in all our leadership communications in the company. Our mission is to reduce the environmental impact and to ‘bring sails back to shipping’.

The technology work by pushing the boat forward through an internal structure of the mechanical sail. It’s a vertical cylinder with an electric motor inside, we spend a small amount of electricity to rotate it round its main axis. When it meets wind on the deck, the idea is that the cylinder generates a thin layer of air, both high and low pressure area.

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We can adjust the location by deciding the speed and direction of the cylinder. That’s what our automation system does and the result is a thrust force which is pushing the ship forward and reducing the main engine load, fuel consumption and emissions.

When we posted recent openings we had around 200 applications. I try to take the last interview for a full-time position and I see how we are acquiring talent to the company.

The technology is new and quite fancy and we try to make it a relaxed and flexible company at the same time.

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