Samuli Laaksonvaara joins Yonoton as Account Manager

With a strong background in the restaurant and hospitality industry and previous experience at Foodora, Samuli Laaksonvaara joins Yonoton as our new Account Manager. His hands-on experience working with restaurants, food delivery industry and customer success gives him a practical perspective that he is looking forward to bringing to Yonoton and our customers.

1. What attracted you to Yonoton, and what made you decide to join the team?

At first it was the services provided to restaurants but as the recruiting process went on I realized there is a lot of speed in this organization. And honestly that's what pulled me in more.

2. What are you most excited about in your new role at Yonoton?

Further developing a great product and service so that our customers could spend more time focusing on what's important to their business. For me it means that there is less time being spent on administrative tasks or punching in orders.

3. Can you tell us briefly about your career journey and what brought you to this point?

My career journey is heavily based on hands-on restaurant work and the hospitality industry in general but also in the food delivery business working as a Customer Success Specialist for restaurant partners.

These are my main experiences that led me to this point and I want to use this knowledge to help our partners grow their business and also give a practical point-of-view to our development team.

4. What experience, skills or perspective do you bring to Yonoton that you’re particularly looking forward to putting into practice?

People skills definitely. I give and get energy from meeting new people, listening to stories from different walks of life and offering my help no matter the subject.

The way I would describe myself is that I'm hard working but I don't want to do unnecessary work in the long run.

Therefore the perspective that I bring to Yonoton is that the less steps you need to make something work is the best.

5. What made Yonoton feel like the right place for you at this stage of your career?

That it's a small company (employee-wise) from Finland with big ambitions and a fast pace.

I wanted to be able to come to a company where I could learn everything from the products and services and offer my point-of-view on where the product development should go and feel like I'm in for one hell of a ride.

6. If you could improve one thing about the way technology is used in restaurants, hospitality or entertainment, what would it be?

To minimise the time people spend away from creating real hospitality and memories to customers. Human touch is something that we all need in our day-to-day lives and I feel that technology can be used for creating more time for face-to-face interactions.

7. What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

At the moment I'm getting back to playing drums bit by bit. On top of that I enjoy cooking for me, my girlfriend or my friends and doing yoga. These clear my mind a lot in my daily life.

Also a good cocktail bar or a nice cozy pub is where I can put my mind to rest!

8. And finally: what is your secret superpower that even your closest friends or family might not know about?

This is a tough one because I don't keep anything from anyone. I'm bad at not telling the truth so basically what you see is what you get!

But if I would have to share something it's that I can make any meal better than the last time😉