Meet Henri Janhonen
From a school study with Cargotec to the Director of Sales and Product Business Management at Multilift Hiab.
In 2004 Henri Janhonen was sitting in a lecture hall at the Helsinki University of Technology, listening to a visiting lecturer from Cargotec. This was part of a course called Design of Product Systems which also included a practical assignment in an organization. Henri’s team got an assignment from Hiab but little did he know where this would lead: “I found working with the assignment very interesting, and it acted as a spark to apply for a summer trainee position in the coming year. The assignment we got as students was a real case. Also the communication and support from our Hiab contacts was fantastic and I really enjoyed the work in the machinery sector.”
As a result of the assignment, Henri applied to a summer trainee position the following spring, and started at Hiab in May 2005. During his first summer he got to work with a variety of different topics such as deliveries of equipment, service business and sourcing. From the very beginning Henri felt like he was not only working with interesting topics but also with great people in a great atmosphere.
Now after 14 years Henri is working as a Director of Sales and Product Business Management at Multilift Hiab. He is leading a department which is responsible for supporting and training Hiab’s distribution partner network. He works with customers, partners and with sales organisation of Hiab and the Multilift team. What makes his job interesting is the versatility of it: “There is not really a “typical day” when working in this position. There are common themes in my work but you never know which customer will contact you next and what they will need assistance with. When working in a business line sales role you can definitely benefit from a good network in the company, experience different tasks and have an active approach to work.”
This is something that Henri really enjoys in his work. Besides his variety of tasks he thinks the best about Hiab and his job are nice colleagues, engaged teams and our products and solutions in which the decades of innovation can be seen. With great products it is also great to work with our distribution and satisfied customers:
“Meeting customers has always been something that I enjoy. I have such good memories of meetings together with customers and coming to an agreement together with them. Overall working with people in international settings has developed my communication skills a lot. This is something which you learn by doing, as well as by support of trainings that Hiab has provided. Also, my work tasks have put the university education into good use, so I am glad about the choices when it comes to my job and my education.”
Even though the journey from the lecture hall to where Henri is now in the company has been long and successful, he thinks that: “There are still many opportunities out there to develop myself in this company as Hiab itself is always developing and going forward.”