How cities can lead with impact: practical tools for future-ready city strategies
How can cities make better decisions for people and the planet when everything in the urban system is connected?
In this webinar on 11 March, one of Finland's biggest cities, the City of Espoo and VTT share how they use data, systems thinking and impact models to guide real-world choices on wellbeing, services and sustainability. You will see how a holistic, impact-driven approach helps cities create future-ready strategies, align departments around shared goals and improve quality of life for residents.
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About the webinar
In this webinar, VTT and the City of Espoo share how they built a systemic, data-driven impact leadership model that helps city leaders see how decisions affect the economy, environment and wellbeing. You will hear how systems thinking, clear impact indicators and modelling tools support more coherent strategy, better service planning and greater transparency, with concrete examples from areas such as early childhood education, city planning and senior wellbeing.
Is this for me?
This webinar is useful for people who
- lead or shape city strategies and decisions in complex urban systems
- work in public sector roles in planning, wellbeing services, sustainability or digitalisation
- advise on policy or develop ecosystems and want to apply systems thinking and impact-based leadership
- collaborate with cities or municipalities on urban development projects from the private sector
- research urban transformation, governance or community wellbeing and want real-life cases to build on
Agenda
- Welcome and opening - Leading beyond the obvious - Why cities need Impact leadership now? Kalle Kantola, Vice President, Foresight and data economy, VTT
- Impact Leadership for future-proof Cities - Kirsi Hyytinen, Research Team Lead, Future-proof Societies VTT
- Case Espoo - Towards systemic Impact Leadership, Piia Wollstén, Director of Digital Service Development & Anni Orttenvuori-Ganter, Lead Data and Knowledge Architect, City of Espoo
- Integrating data for better urban decisions - Peter Ylén, Lead, System dynamics, VTT
- Q&A
Speakers
Dr. Kantola, works as a Vice president, Foresight and Data Economy at VTT. He leads an organization which supports future oriented decision making of companies and society. Data and data-based businesses is one of the focus areas of the research. Dr. Kantola has a wide knowledge of business development in various industries, and he has created his career in business - technology interface. Prior VTT he has worked as a CTO, management consultant and as a board member in different companies. Dr. Kantola is member of the Finnish Academy of Technical Sciences.
Dr. Peter Ylén is Lead of Data economy and Foresight at VTT. He is an expert in Systems thinking and System Dynamics Modelling having more than 25 years of experience in assessing impacts of business strategies, investments and management, policy portfolios on innovation processes, systemic holistic indicators, working closely with top management and policymakers. He develops management flight simulators for decision support in complex future business ecosystems.
Kirsi Hyytinen (D.Sc., Tech) has 20+ years of experience in research, technology, and innovation policy. She currently leads the Future-proof Societies team at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, which supports decision-makers with concrete tools to anticipate future needs, design proactive policies, and accelerate the impacts of innovation for sustainable society. Recently, her work has focused on developing impact leadership a new methodology that integrates futures and systems perspectives to support the renewal of cities and regions and to promote people’s wellbeing in Finland and globally.
Anni is responsible for the development of data management and enterprise architecture at the City of Espoo. Her work focuses on supporting and improving high‑quality practices across the city’s service areas, as well as advancing the city’s capabilities in data governance, data utilization, and impact leadership.
She serves as the head of the data and knowledge management unit, which provides strategic support for service development across different departments, ensuring that data and expertise are used effectively to drive innovation and create better service solutions for residents.
Piia Wollstén works as director of digital service development for the City of Espoo, where she leads city-wide digital service and data leadership initiatives that support successful transformation. She has a Master of Social Sciences in political science from the University of Helsinki and an Executive MBA from Aalto University Executive Education.
Piia’s work focuses on enterprise architecture and data governance, ensuring that data is used effectively across the organisation and that open data initiatives create value for residents and partners. She plays a key role in strengthening Espoo’s position as a smart city by driving innovative digital solutions that improve public services and operational efficiency. Under her leadership, Espoo has been recognised as a Creatido Certified Insight Driven Organisation and was a finalist at the Smart City Expo 2024.