Victor Fagerlund, Senior Legal Counsel
“Becoming a lawyer was my childhood dream, but after upper secondary school I attended a school to become a wilderness guide. But that was never intended as my career to be, so I began to study law and got a job at a law firm on my first week of university. It was very educational to have the opportunity to observe lawyers’ everyday work in the office.
After graduation, I worked as a lawyer in a law firm with M&A as my speciality. I was very excited to work on some of the most notable company M&A and capital markets deals in Finland. Our team worked on these projects long before they hit the headlines. I enjoyed being part of these challenging projects that often required us to do things that had never been done before in Finland. Our team had to be innovative and establish new solutions. People do not often think that a lawyer has to be creative at their job, but sometimes they really do!
This same air of creativity inspires me in my work at Finnfund. I am always working on 10–15 projects at the same time and I have to divide my time between the projects carefully. It is hard but rewarding work.
I wanted to work for Finnfund because they offered me an opportunity to work on projects in a team during the whole life span of the project, instead of working intensely on projects for a short time like at a lawyer’s office. Finnfund is a unique employer in Finland: you have the chance to work on many different transactions all over the world. I want my work to be meaningful, so Finnfund’s mission was also a deciding factor for me. Although the legal technicalities in Finnfund’s projects are very similar to other M&A and loan transactions, the goal of impacting well-being in our target countries is always clear on my mind. The meaningfulness of this work motivates me.
Finnfund provides great conditions for balancing your career and family life. Since I have small children, I have taken longer family leaves and have at times been working shorter hours. When my children come home from day-care, I can turn off my laptop and spend time with them.”