An “As Told To” interview by Kristaps Kovalonoks, Research Coordinator at Aalto School of Business.
This interview is part of a first-person storytelling series highlighting the personal journeys, ideas, and insights of members of Aalto University’s Entrepreneurship Unit (ENTU). Real stories, told in their own words.
What leads someone to pursue two separate PhDs, one in Finland and another in the United States, and then return nearly two decades later to help shape the future of entrepreneurship education in Finland? In this interview, Maija Renko, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Aalto University, shares her international academic journey, her role in launching Aalto Founder School, and how she hopes to inspire students to take action, whether today or many years from now.
I’m Maija Renko, and I’m a Professor of Entrepreneurship here at Aalto University, in the Entrepreneurship Unit. I’m originally from Finland and did my master’s degree in international business at Turku School of Economics. That’s also where I began my PhD studies. During that time, I travelled to the United States to collect data for my dissertation, and what was supposed to be a short research visit turned into something much bigger.
I ended up enrolling as a PhD student at Florida International University in Miami, while still continuing my studies in Turku. In the end, I completed two separate doctoral degrees: one in international business from Turku in 2006, and another in entrepreneurship from Florida in 2008.
After graduating, I entered the academic job market and took a tenure-track position at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I taught entrepreneurship and did research for over a decade. In 2019, I moved to DePaul University, also in Chicago, where I continued teaching and working with entrepreneurs.
When the opportunity came up to join Aalto, I felt it was time to come home. Aalto didn’t even exist when I first moved to the US, and now it is the flagship entrepreneurship university in Finland. I’m very happy to be back.
My interest in entrepreneurship really started during my time in Miami. I had travelled there to collect data for my dissertation and was visiting Professor Alan Carsrud, who at the time was an entrepreneurship professor. He also happened to be a good friend of my supervisor back in Turku, Malin Brännback. Alan was deeply involved in every aspect of entrepreneurship, from teaching and research to community engagement, and working with him during that time had a big impact on me.
Out of all the business disciplines I had been exposed to, entrepreneurship stood out as the most exciting. Miami itself was a very entrepreneurial environment, with people starting and growing businesses everywhere. But what also drew me in was how open the field of entrepreneurship scholarship felt compared to more established business school disciplines. It seemed like there was room for new perspectives and research approaches. That exchange experience in Miami, and working closely with Alan, is really what sparked my interest in pursuing entrepreneurship as both a research focus and a teaching career.
The opportunity to join Aalto was really the key reason I returned to Finland. I had been following the university from afar for many years and saw it growing into something quite remarkable. Aalto didn’t even exist when I first moved to the United States, and now it is the flagship entrepreneurship university in Finland. So when a position opened up in the Entrepreneurship Unit, it felt like the right time to come home.
Of course, there were also some personal and family reasons involved, but professionally, this was a chance I didn’t want to miss. I was excited about the possibility of working with colleagues like Ewald Kibler, whom I’ve known since our days at Turku School of Economics. We graduated a few years apart, and I had followed his work over the years. I had stayed in touch with several people in Finland, and it felt like a good moment to return and be part of something impactful.
What I find Finland could use more of is actual entrepreneurs. The ecosystem itself is strong. There is a lot of support for different types of entrepreneurs, especially in the context of Aalto, where people with technology or science-based ideas can find established ways to start developing them, either within the university or in the broader community.
However, it still feels like there is not the same level of entrepreneurial activity, meaning people actually founding and doing things, as I saw in the United States. That may be due to a mix of incentives, mindset, culture, or other factors.
In the US, at least in the regions where I have worked, the situation is almost the opposite. Entrepreneurs do not always have access to the support they need. The systems are sometimes harder to navigate. But despite that, people still go ahead and try. Some succeed, some do not, and many of those who do not simply try again, on their second, third, fourth or even fifth attempt.
Here, I see a lot happening in terms of research. In my everyday work, I could easily spend my time just attending talks and seminars. There are so many interesting discussions taking place, and the people here are incredibly smart. What I also appreciate is the openness. There is a strong culture of communicating around research, which makes it easy to engage, collaborate, and expand your thinking.
Within our unit, I also see a culture of caring about each other’s work. People are open to different approaches and build community around what they are passionate about. That kind of environment is very inspiring. So far, I have mainly been involved within our own Entrepreneurship Unit, but everything I have experienced has made me feel welcome and excited to contribute.
When it comes to teaching, I hope I can bring in what I would call the founder’s spirit, meaning more of that doing mindset. Entrepreneurship teaching is often very practice-oriented, and I believe it should be. We want students to understand what it really takes to start something of their own. Aalto offers a good balance. You can explore larger questions through research, and still turn those lessons into something students can act on. Whether they start a company right away or twenty years later, I hope they will remember a moment like a course, a talk, a conversation that gave them the confidence to do so.
The Entrepreneurship Unit at Aalto has been a really positive surprise for me. It is a great team, and to be honest, I was impressed by how large the unit is, especially for a field like entrepreneurship. There is a lot of diversity in terms of research areas and topics people are working on, which makes it a very dynamic environment.
At the same time, there seems to be a shared interest in themes related to social and sustainability impact. Not everyone focuses on these directly, but they often come up as part of the broader conversation. That common thread brings a sense of coherence, even with all the different directions people are exploring.
One thing I am especially looking forward to is working more closely with PhD students. The first ones I am supervising here are just starting this autumn, and that is something I did not have many opportunities to do in my previous positions. It is exciting to now be in a role where I can support them, but also learn from them and be part of their academic journey.
Overall, ENTU offers a wonderful environment for pursuing all kinds of research interests within entrepreneurship. There is room to grow, collaborate, and contribute in meaningful ways. I feel very lucky to be part of it.
The idea for Aalto Founder School actually predates my arrival, but it came from a clear realisation within the university. Even though there is already so much happening around entrepreneurship here on campus, there is still more Aalto can do to support students who want to found companies. The Founder School is one of the ways the university is addressing that need.
It is important to note that this is not a Business School or ENTU initiative. It is a university-level effort, with students from all Aalto schools invited to take part. The aim is to make founder-focused learning accessible across disciplines, not just for business students. That broader reach is a key part of the vision.
My role so far has focused on bridging the academic side with the founder-focused side. I have been heavily involved in building the new Founder Minor, which launches this autumn. It allows students to take courses that focus specifically on founding companies and to receive credit for those. In addition to the minor, I am also involved in the Founders Sprint programme, where selected students receive mentoring and exposure to experienced entrepreneurs, and in the Founder Talks lecture series, which brings inspiring speakers to campus.
More broadly, I see myself as someone helping to connect two worlds. On one side, there are the realities and structures of a large university. On the other, there is the energy and drive of entrepreneurs and founders who are passionate about building things but may not have worked with universities before. Helping those two sides work together has been a key part of my contribution so far.
The first thing that comes to mind is the most obvious one. If we have a Founder School, then naturally people will expect to see more startups coming out of it. That would be great, of course. And as my colleague Mårten Mickos likes to say, also better startups: growth-oriented, ambitious ventures.
But beyond that, I hope we will have achieved something deeper. The world of work is changing fast. Many of the jobs we see today will not exist twenty years from now. What I would really love to see is that our students, through the Founder School, develop a mindset where they see the future as something they can shape. Whether they start their own company or not, I hope they feel empowered to take action.
That action might take many forms. It might be building a growth company, but it could also be working in a startup, creating change within an existing organisation, or even starting a political movement that challenges how entrepreneurship is perceived or supported in Finland. All of those would count as impact.
So if in five or ten years we can say that the Founder School helped students feel that they have agency – that they can build something, influence something, or change something – I would consider that a meaningful achievement.
For students at the bachelor’s or master’s level, I would encourage them to take a moment and really think about where the companies they study actually come from. Every large corporation they analyse in class was once founded by someone. And if it grew into a global business, then that founder probably did a few things right. Wouldn’t it be exciting to be that person? Or at least to understand what it takes to start something like that?
Entrepreneurship is behind everything in business. Whether or not you become a founder, gaining insight into that process gives you a new way of seeing the world. It changes how you think about risk, opportunity, and your own path forward.
For early-career researchers, my advice is to consider just how open the field of entrepreneurship really is. Even compared to when I started, it now welcomes a wide range of topics, methods, and approaches. In some disciplines, you might feel boxed in, required to study certain types of questions or outcomes. But in entrepreneurship, as long as your work relates to the process of pursuing opportunities, there is room for you.
That freedom is one of the things I value most. You can define what matters to you, and then make the case for why others should care. It is an open and welcoming area of research, with space to explore.
Something people might not know about me is that I often feel like I am in a state of ongoing cultural adjustment. Having spent most of my career in the United States and now being back in Finland, I find myself constantly comparing the two. When I was in the US, I would often think about what Finland could learn from that environment. Now that I’m here, I sometimes catch myself thinking the opposite. It can be a bit frustrating, but I also see it as an opportunity, especially when it comes to bringing the best parts of the US entrepreneurship culture into the Finnish context.
On a lighter note, I really miss sushi in the US. I never expected to become such a fan of it, but once I did, I couldn’t go back. The quality and freshness in the US was just different, and the sushi you find in Finnish supermarkets doesn’t quite compare. If I had to choose my first meal after a long conference trip, it would be sushi, with Chipotle as a close second. And if I were ever to start a fast-food franchise in Finland, I would probably bring Chipotle here.
