ABOUT
NorthPeak Governance
NorthPeak Governance is a boutique governance firm based in Helsinki, Finland, founded by Jarkko Matilainen and Timo Kaisanlahti in 2018. Our team consists of four partners, all serving as independent directors on fund boards.
NorthPeak focuses on prudent board work and offers value added relationships to managers. We are committed to high integrity and best practices.
Our Team
Jarkko Matilainen, Co-Founder
jarkko.matilainen@northpeak.fi | Phone: +358 50 472 2511
Jarkko is one of the two Co-Founders of NorthPeak Governance LP. Currently Jarkko serves as a Director in funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands, Ireland and Luxembourg. Prior to NorthPeak, Jarkko was a portfolio manager and later the head of hedge funds at Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company having overall responsibility for the team, portfolio and investments. Jarkko successfully grew the business to become one of the largest hedge fund investors in Europe. Before Varma, he was one of four founding partners of Avenir, an equity long/short fund in Helsinki. He started his career at Pension-Varma in 1996, first as an economist and later as a strategist covering macro and investment analysis as well as asset allocation and risk management tasks.
Jarkko served as a member of UN PRI hedge fund advisory board from 2014 to 2023. He chaired the PRI working group which helped formulate the first industry-standard responsible investment due diligence questionnaire for hedge funds. He holds a graduate degree (MSc, Economics) from the University of Tampere, Finland.
Timo Kaisanlahti, Co-Founder
timo.kaisanlahti@northpeak.fi | Phone: +358 50 472 2888
Timo has extensive experience of governance as well as accounting issues and is one of the two Co-Founders of NorthPeak Governance LP. He serves as a Director in two international hedge fund vehicles and as the Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Mortgage Society of Finland. He is also the Chairman of the Finnish Accounting Standards Board and holds a part-time professorship of law and regulation of financial statements at the University of Helsinki (Professor of Practice). Previously, Timo served as the Head of Legal Affairs and Compliance in Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company. Beyond Varma, Timo chaired the Policy Committee of Directors´ Institute of Finland. He has also taken part in numerous law-drafting groups regarding corporate, securities and accounting legislation and served as a representative of Finland in the EU. Timo holds a LL.D from the University of Helsinki and a M.Sc. (Econ.) from Helsinki School of Economics.
Jussi Kärävä, Partner
Laura Männistö, Partner
Jussi joined NorthPeak Governance LP in March 2019. Currently Jussi serves as a Director in funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg. Prior to NorthPeak, Jussi was heading the fund selection team at OP, the largest Finnish financial group with over 60 billion euros of assets under management. Jussi’s team was responsible for around 7 billion euros investments to external managers globally. Jussi was also responsible for a hedge fund of funds called Crystal, an Irish listed fund. Jussi prepared and collected the materials for fund’s board meetings as well as made investment decisions. Prior to OP, in 2009, Jussi founded KKM Partners, a derivatives broker, which was successfully sold to Evli Bank already in 2011. KKM’s main business was listed options broking for fixed income and equities. Company grew from zero to third largest broker in Finland, calculated by volume. Jussi served as CEO overseeing governance and running the daily business. Earlier Jussi worked for Varma Pension Insurance company as a portfolio manager in a team lead by Jarkko Matilainen (Co-Founder of NorthPeak). The team managed to increase the allocation from a few hundred millions to over three billion euros during that time. Over the same period Varma became one of the largest hedge fund investors in Europe.
Jussi holds graduate degree (MSc, Economics) from the Helsinki School of Economics. His master's thesis was about equity risk premium in Finland. When Jussi has free time he can be found in the forest running or doing cross country skiing.
Laura joined NorthPeak Governance in April of 2020. Prior to joining NorthPeak Governance, she worked at Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company, one of the largest pension insurance companies in Finland with assets of some 50 billion euros. During her 18-year tenure at Ilmarinen, Laura served in a number of senior portfolio management roles. She was responsible for the overall external hedge fund allocation and constructed the portfolio from a couple of hedge funds to a diversified portfolio of managers. Laura was also in charge of Ilmarinen's commodities direct risk taking, and was active in cross-asset tactical asset allocation. Her responsibilities also included co-heading Ilmarinen Alpha, the internal hedge fund, where she had a cross-asset risk taking mandate. At Ilmarinen, Laura also built and ran Ilmarinen's systematic risk premia activities.
Laura received a Bachelor's Degree from University of San Diego, California, and did her graduate studies at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, at University of Geneva, Switzerland. Laura is a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) Charterholder. Tennis has been a dear sport for Laura, and she holds multiple National Tennis Championships in Finland while playing in the national team, and later she played in the varsity team of University of San Diego.