With strong financial tailwinds, high client eNPS, and our return to the Mearra brand in early 2026, we are sailing on steady momentum. To build on this foundation, we are hoisting two major new sails: welcoming Janne Aaltonen as Head of Design and Maari Fabritius as Business Designer.
Mearra’s original success was built on a simple recipe (menestysresepti): deep client partnerships, understanding our clients’ core business, and co-creating tailored digital solutions that yield real competitive advantage.
While software engineering remains our foundation, the AI era has shifted the bottleneck. As AI accelerates code generation, human insight, strategy, and intentional design become the true differentiators. The more code AI writes, the more human thinking is required to steer it. Expanding our design capacity ensures we remain the trusted digital development partner co-creating solutions that help our clients stand out—both in Finland and internationally.
Janne Aaltonen: Elevating design capabilities
Janne joins us as Head of Design, bringing extensive experience across digital products, emerging technology, and design leadership—most recently working with AI-driven product development at Oura. At Mearra, he will lead the development of our design discipline and help bring business, human insight, design, and technology even closer together.
I’ve spent much of my career at the intersection of design, technology and business, and Mearra feels like a place where those disciplines can genuinely meet. I was also drawn to the opportunity to help shape what design can become here in the AI era. There’s a strong foundation, but also a lot of curiosity and ambition about what comes next. That combination made this a particularly exciting moment to join.
On Mearra’s outlook, Janne highlights the opportunity ahead:
What excites me about Mearra is that the foundations are already exceptionally strong: deep technology expertise, ambitious client work and a culture built around doing things together. The AI era opens up a much bigger playing field for all of that. I see a real opportunity to bring business, design and technology even closer together, and to turn emerging possibilities into digital products and experiences that create meaningful value for people and businesses.
Maari Fabritius: Business design for the AI era
Joining from Lobster as Business Designer, Maari bridges emerging technology, strategy, and human needs. For her, current AI developments mirror earlier pivotal shifts in digital history.
This is a rare moment — it reminds me of the late nineties, when I started my professional career. So much is shifting with AI, things we only dreamed of back then are suddenly becoming very much possible. The ways of working are being rebuilt from the ground up, but the core hasn’t moved an inch: it still comes down to understanding people. Mearra has a solid tech core, with emphasis on open source and EU-based solutions, combined with strong emphasis on all things human. That’s why the interesting part is still ahead of us.
Having collaborated with Mearra previously, her decision to join was natural:
I’d already worked alongside the Mearra team and watched the Mearra Method come alive, so I wasn’t taking anything on faith. The new way of working is genuinely exciting, and the exceptional company culture is the sort that doesn’t develop by accident. Between the two, the decision more or less made itself.
The Mearra Method: Another major ship set to sail
These hires are part of a broader investment in our design and process capabilities. On top of expanding our team, another major ship is soon set to sail: the rollout of the Mearra Method. Designed to seamlessly unite business, people, and technology, this methodology gives organisations a structured approach to converting technological shifts into lasting value.
Learn more about our approach at method.mearra.com.
A warm welcome to Janne and Maari!
