Jussi Pesonen

Jussi Pesonen (born November 24, 1960 in Helsinki) is the president and chief executive officer of the Finnish pulp, paper and timber company UPM since 2004.

Jussi Pesonen (born 1960) is the President and Chief Executive Officer of UPM-Kymmene - one of the world’s largest leading forest industry companies.

Due to decreasing paper consumption in Europe, UPM has reviewed its strategy. Under the leadership of Pesonen the company has increased its operational efficiency and accomplished structural reforms within the mature European paper market while investing in the Asian and Latin American emerging markets. In addition, UPM has developed a number of new businesses and products based on biomaterials. UPM´s growing business operations are energy, pulp, adhesive labels and paper in Asia.

The Company has positioned itself as a Biofore company through the synergies of the traditional forest industry and new innovative wood-biomass products. For example, wood based biodiesel and wood fibre plastic composites are some examples of these new innovations.

In 2012 UPM received important recognition as it was listed as the only forestry and paper company worldwide in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. The company has been selected both as a Super sector Leader in Basic Resources sector and Forestry & Paper Sector Leader for 2012-2013 in the index. The DJSI tracks the stock performance of the world's leading companies in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria.

Jussi Pesonen has been CEO of UPM since 2004. Prior to his appointment he also served as deputy to the President and CEO from 2001-2004 and in several senior management posts in key paper business areas including Vice President of the Newsprint Product Group and COO of the paper divisions. Jussi Pesonen joined UPM in 1987 as a production engineer. Pesonen has a Master of Science degree in engineering in process technology from the University of Oulu, Finland.

Jussi Pesonen has served on the board of UPM-Kymmene Corporation since 2007. In addition, he has been a board member of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation (FFIF) since 2003, Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2006 to 2008, Deputy Chairman in 2005 and between 2009-2011 and a member on the Executive Committee from 2004 to 2007.

He has also been Chairman of the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) since 2012. He has been a CEPI board member 2004 and a member of its Executive Committee since 2006. In addition to his industrial experience, he has also been a board member of Outokumpu Ltd from 2009 to 2012, the Chairman of the Board of Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company starting from 2012 and a Member of the board at Ilmarinen from 2009 to 2011.

Through his leadership positions, Pesonen has emphasised the strong positive environmental performance of the forest industry and highlighted the exciting future prospects of the sector as a part of the developing bioeconomy.