Sonia Mathews

Background

About Sonia Mathews

I began my career as a strategy consultant at EY. Sanoma was my client, and there I successfully implemented Lean methodologies, resulting to its adoption as a cornerstone of the company's strategy. Sanoma decided to build a lean excellence team and I was selected to lead it. The results were transformative: we revamped all editorial work processes, systems, and KPIs - all this during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the age of 28, I was invited to become the Strategy Director for Helsingin Sanomat - the largest newspaper in the Nordics - and joined their executive team. In this role, I led all of their strategic initiatives. We won the INMA award for "Best innovation in newsroom in the World." Subsequently, I was asked to lead one of the largest M&A integration projects in Sanoma Learning’s history, overseeing 250 people across all of Sanoma’s functions and countries. I moved to Milan, Italy and took actively part in the strategic vision for Sanoma Italy. The stakeholders included C-level executives and the board. The project was delivered on time and within budget. Currently I am leading strategy and its implementation at Finnair, our iconic Finnish airline. Each of the above mentioned transformations I have managed to complete in under 18 months.