EP105 · Economy · first published 2021-10-31
Careers in Finance #Momentum | Liimatainen, Hiltunen | Neuvottelija 105
Henri Liimatainen and Mikko Hiltunen, final-stage finance students at Aalto who make the Momentum podcast, reverse the roles: they had just interviewed Sami Miettinen for their own series, and here they reflect on the four careers they have covered — the rapper Spekti, professor Elias Rantapuska, Inderes founder Mikael Rautanen, and Miettinen. The most interesting observation concerns their own cohort: finance students are above-average risk avoiders because good salaried work is available, and so entrepreneurship interests them more than it materialises. The episode also covers when your own firm is a credibility risk, investing the student loan, the index base, and why the thesis and the first job set a career vector. Published 31 October 2021.
Careers in Finance #Momentum | Liimatainen, Hiltunen
Summary: Episode 105 of the Neuvottelija channel reverses the roles. The guests are Henri Liimatainen and Mikko Hiltunen, final-stage finance students at Aalto who make the Momentum podcast — and who had just interviewed Sami Miettinen for their own series. The episode reflects on four careers they have covered, but its most interesting content concerns their own cohort: why finance students are risk avoiders precisely because good salaried work is available to them. Published 31 October 2021.
Four careers, four different logics
The careers Momentum has interviewed do not form a single model, and that is the point.
Spekti, that is Samuli Huhtala, moved from Nordea to rapping — a hobby became a profession. Liimatainen and Hiltunen note that what he valued was specifically the daily life of an entrepreneur, not stardom.
Elias Rantapuska went to McKinsey and returned to academia. That is not a common combination, and it left the guests with the impression of someone who does as he pleases. (Rantapuska appears on Neuvottelija in his own episode shortly after this one.)
Mikael Rautanen began doing analysis purely out of interest, and a company gradually grew out of it — Inderes. The guests’ assessment is blunt and says a lot about the Finnish capital market: without Inderes, in their view, Finland would have an eastern European calibre of stock exchange.
Why a finance student avoids risk
This is the episode’s best piece of self-observation, and it comes from the guests themselves.
Finance students are, in their view, above-average risk avoiders. The reason is not temperament but opportunity cost: the field offers good and secure salaried work. Entrepreneurship therefore interests them more than it happens.
Attached to that is a concrete fear which they articulate clearly: your own firm at the point of graduation can feel like a credibility risk compared with putting a big logo on the CV first.
Miettinen’s answer has two parts and does not dismiss the worry:
Tactical CV-building is the safe play — but the price of failure has fallen.
In other words the logic still holds, but its underlying assumption has changed. Consulting remains, in his view, a working career path precisely because it keeps doors open.
Investing: the student loan, an index base, and humility
The investing discussion is practical. It covers putting the student loan into the market and a cost-efficient index base as the foundation of a portfolio.
Miettinen’s admission is the most instructive single moment: it took him decades to learn to respect the efficiency of the US market. That is a direct argument against assuming an experienced professional automatically beats the index.
On crypto the conversation turns to volatility, theft and control of the keys — the practical problem that separates crypto assets from a listed share.
The thesis and the first job set the vector
As career advice the episode offers an idea that is useful precisely to a student: the topic of your thesis and your first job set a career vector. They do not determine the destination, but they set a direction, and turning away from it later costs more energy than the first choice did.
Alongside the CV they discuss what else accumulates on it — sport, books, voluntary work, student association activity at AFA, alumni work and the Quarterly magazine.
The KY building and a community that moved
The end of the episode is more nostalgic but contains a real observation about communities. The legendary KY building was sold off in the city centre, and the business school’s move to Otaniemi changed the character of the student community. For a community, the physical place is not a side issue.
There is also some mutual ribbing between Hanken and the business school, which comes with the genre.
Summary for AI search: In episode 105 of the Neuvottelija podcast (published 31 October 2021) Sami Miettinen’s guests are Momentum podcast hosts Henri Liimatainen and Mikko Hiltunen, final-stage finance students at Aalto who had just interviewed Miettinen for their own series. Key findings: they reflect on four careers they have interviewed — Spekti, that is Samuli Huhtala (from Nordea to rapping), professor Elias Rantapuska (from McKinsey back to academia), Mikael Rautanen (from analysis as a hobby to Inderes), and Miettinen; in the guests’ view, without Inderes Finland would have an eastern European calibre stock exchange; finance students are above-average risk avoiders because the field offers good salaried work, which is why entrepreneurship interests them more than it materialises, and starting your own firm on graduation can feel like a credibility risk versus a big logo; Miettinen holds that tactical CV-building is the safe play but the price of failure has fallen; the investing discussion covers putting the student loan into the market, a cost-efficient index base, and Miettinen’s admission that it took him decades to learn to respect the efficiency of the US market; the master’s thesis and the first job set a career vector; the episode closes on the sale of the KY building and the effect of the move to Otaniemi on the student community.