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 does it mean to lead the Entrepreneurship Unit (ENTU) at Aalto School of Business, not just in theory but in practice? In this first-person interview, Associate Professor Ewald Kibler reflects on his journey from Austria to Finland, the evolution of ENTU, and the questions that continue to drive his work.
I’m originally from Austria, Salzburg, and my academic background is in sociology. I studied at the University of Graz, completing both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. During that time, I did an Erasmus exchange at the Alliance Manchester Business School. That was my first real exposure to management and entrepreneurship topics. Until then, I was mainly focused on social theory, but I started to get curious about the intersection between society and business.
I didn’t set out to become an entrepreneurship researcher. It was more of a gradual shift, one shaped by people I met, topics I encountered, and an openness to explore new directions. That mindset has stayed with me, and I eventually decided to focus my master’s thesis in Sociology already on entrepreneurship from a regional cultural perspective.
For me, Finland entered the picture through a deep personal connection. I met Johanna, now my dear wife and the mother of our two wonderful children, Leon and Viola, when she was an Erasmus student in 2006 at the University of Graz in Austria. After her Erasmus studies, we ended up doing long-distance for a short while, and eventually I found a “free mover” option to study at the University of Oulu, where she had studied.
I moved to Oulu in 2008 and was able to complete parts of my master’s studies and work on my thesis using Finnish regional survey and secondary data. That’s also where I took an entrepreneurship course taught by a guest Professor Teemu Kautonen. I submitted a research-based essay as the final assignment, and Teemu came back to me and said, “This is great. If you revise it slightly, you’ll get the best grade.” Then he asked me, “Have you thought about doing a PhD?” I already considered doing a PhD before, but that question really stuck with me, and it was one of those moments that quietly shapes the direction your life takes.
In 2010, I started my PhD in economic geography at Turku School of Economics, supervised by Professor Päivi Oinas and co-supervised by Professor Teemu Kautonen, who had just joined the TSE Entre group shortly before my enrolment. But I spent much of that time in London, working from Kingston Business School, which housed the well-known Small Business Research Centre (SBRC), led by prominent Entrepreneurship Professors such as David Smallbone and Robert Blackburn.
My wife was doing her internship in London, which is why we were there. I also spent a lot of time with Thomas Wainwright, a trained economic geographer who was a postdoctoral researcher at the time, and who remains a dear friend and co-author to this day. I attended all the major European small business and entrepreneurship conferences, met long-term friends and colleagues like Professor Pablo Muñoz, started publishing quite early, and became part of the entrepreneurship research community.
I defended my doctoral thesis in 2012, with Professor Erik Stam as opponent, and officially graduated in early 2013. After that, I stayed on at Turku as a postdoctoral researcher for one year, funded by the university. By then I was living in Helsinki and mostly worked from libraries, commuting to Turku just once or twice a week. That’s how I eventually got connected to researchers from Aalto School of Business and Hanken School of Economics. I was already embedded in the Finnish academic community, and when I heard Aalto opened a call for an Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship in 2014, I applied. And fortunately I got the position. That’s how I joined Aalto.
I joined Aalto in January 2014 as the first Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship on a tenure track. At the same time, Teemu Kautonen started as Associate Professor and Head of the Entrepreneurship Unit. We were the only professors in entrepreneurship in 2014 and still based in the city center, in the Arkadia building. Our unit was tucked away behind a locked door, quite literally. We were physically and socially separated from the rest of the departments at the Aalto School of Business. It felt like we were this little island, not really part of the wider Aalto University community.
But in a way, that isolation gave us space to focus. There were already several doctoral students in the unit, and because of the transition, some didn’t know yet who their supervisor would be. I immediately took on several doctoral thesis supervisions from day one, which is quite unusual for a new Assistant Professor. But I felt prepared. Maybe it was because my background in sociology and economic geography gave me a solid research foundation. I was also fortunate to work early on with brilliant doctoral researchers who are now dear friends, such as Bernadetta Ginting-Szczesny and Lauri Laine, who are currently postdoctoral researchers in our unit, and Steffen Farny and Virva Salmivaara, who hold already excellent professorial positions abroad.
Not really. During my early years, I focused on publishing, supervising doctoral students, and developing our master’s programme. I wasn’t thinking about becoming Head of Unit. When Teemu Kautonen left, around 2020, I didn’t step in right away. At that point, I had just received a Research Council of Finland Fellowship, which is a five-year position focused on research, with a good budget and very limited teaching or administrative responsibilities.
Toward the end of my fellowship, I had submitted my tenure application and was promoted to Associate Professor. By then, I knew the unit inside out and felt committed to its future. It felt like the right moment to step into a leadership role. I have now been Head of Unit for about three years, since 2022.
It’s like running a small business or a community-based enterprise. I’m constantly thinking about how to develop the unit while keeping sustainability and a strong community spirit in mind. I want every hire to add long-term value, not just fill short-term needs. That’s why we focus on long-term positions, like hiring our first and great permanent Lecturer, Apurva Ganoo. That had a big impact on our teaching efforts and helped strengthen our connection with the Aalto entrepreneurship ecosystem.
One of the most rewarding parts is seeing a new colleague welcomed intoour ENTU community, finding their rhythm in teaching and research. It is alsoinspiring to witness people’s growth as their achievements become visible. Forexample, when a doctoral student invests so much time and effort into theirresearch and then has their first paper accepted. Just recently, one of mydoctoral researchers Anastasia Koptsyukh, who carried out long and intensivefieldwork on compassion ventures in times of crisis, had her work published,and seeing that is truly rewarding.
One of the challenges is balance, meaning, how to meet increasing demands for teaching and service while protecting the research time of our faculty and researchers. Sometimes that means advising junior colleagues not to take on too many responsibilities too quickly. I see it as part of my role to help others make strategic decisions for the long run.
The first major challenge was building legitimacy. Back in 2014, entrepreneurship didn’t have a strong reputation yet at Aalto School of Business. That changed as we published more research in top journals and demonstrated research excellence. It took several years, but eventually people started to recognize us as a serious academic unit in the field of entrepreneurship.
Another turning point was the move from the city center to Otaniemi in 2020, right before COVID. It brought us physically closer to other departments, which made collaboration easier and visibility much better. It’s one of the reasons why we’re more embedded in the Aalto entrepreneurship ecosystem now.
And then there’s the growth of our team. We’ve expanded from two professors in 2014 to five, including myself, Myrto Chliova, Patrick Shulist, Tamara Galkina, and Maija Renko, forming a strong international faculty team. Everyone brings something unique, but what unites us is a shared interest in social, community, and sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship. This gives our unit a clear and strong identity.
Oh, there are many, and I don’t want to leave anyone out. But if I have to name a few, one highlight was publishing in the Academy of Management Journal in 2019 with one of my first doctoral students, Steffen Farny. The research started with his exceptional master’s thesis and fieldwork in Haiti. Later, we developed a paper project together over several years. It was a meaningful, long-term collaboration and a great example of how doctoral work can evolve into high-impact research.
Others have taken their work in exciting directions too. Some of our students have gone on to become venture capitalists, investors, ecosystem support actors, or entrepreneurship coaches. For example, our former master’s student Kasper Suomalainen now manages the newly established Aalto Founder School, led by our new Professor Maija Renko and entrepreneur Mårten Mickos. Another example outside academia is our former master’s student Kati Mayfield, who founded FloweRescue, a well-known non-profit in the Helsinki area.
I'm also proud of the work we've done on our brand and visibility, from creating the ENTU name and launching our LinkedIn page to making important hires. These may seem like small steps, but they've played a big role in shaping how we're perceived and how we engage with others. Most importantly, I'm very glad to see how ENTU has evolved over the past year into a tight-knit, professional, and fun community united by shared passions and interests.
That’s a good question, and kind of a funny one too. If I had to pick three words, I’d say we’re enthusiastic, entrepreneurial, and a bit adventurous. Enthusiastic because people really care about what they’re doing here. Entrepreneurial not just in the topics we study, but also in how we run the unit itself. We try to be an entrepreneurial unit, not just a unit about entrepreneurship. And adventurous because we’re not afraid to explore new directions or try new things.
That mindset has shaped how we’ve grown. We haven’t aimed to grow fast, but we’ve grown in a meaningful way by gaining more resources, more legitimacy, and more recognition in the ecosystem. And I think that’s because we try to live the values we study.
There’s quite a lot. One key theme we’re working on is age and aging, which is something I’ve been passionate about since my master’s thesis back in 2009. I still find it fascinating to explore how people in later stages of life engage in entrepreneurship, and what it means both for their own quality of life and for societal developments more broadly. We also have a project on age discrimination, and another looking at how entrepreneurial mindsets develop across different communities, regions and cultural contexts. There’s also work on legitimacy, especially how entrepreneurs build it in more difficult or marginalized settings. Much of this connects to places and contexts shaped by the entrepreneurs themselves. It’s not just about the Finnish startup scene; it’s about asking broader questions such as who gets to be seen as an impactful and responsible entrepreneur, and under what conditions.
I want ENTU to continue growing, but in a smart and sustainable way. This is a place where people can do meaningful, high-quality work. We’re not aiming to become huge overnight. We want to maintain our values and culture while responding to new demands.
That’s why we’re expanding the team slowly, bringing in another lecturer soon, and focusing on long-term funding for doctoral researchers. The donations we’ve received, like from the Yrjö Uitto Foundation, have helped us offer a more stable PhD experience. That’s something I want to keep improving.
We also continue to monitor and develop the new Master’s Programme in Sustainable Entrepreneurship, making sure it stays aligned with our research strengths and the evolving needs of students and the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
You can’t really plan your career. Things happen step by step. For me, it was always about meeting the right people, being open to new directions, and saying yes when interesting opportunities came along. I didn’t plan to go to London or Finland. I didn’t plan to become an entrepreneurship professor. It just unfolded that way, and I am very grateful for it.
And having good mentors early on, like Teemu Kautonen, really made a difference. That’s something I try to pass on. I make a point of being available to others, because I know how much that kind of support meant to me.
Start with your deep passion and personal interests, before getting caught up in strategic decisions about your career. The first choices you make can shape your path for years to come, so it is worth asking yourself honestly what topics and questions truly matter to you. It should not just be about what your supervisor is working on. It needs to come from within, from your own interests, skills, and sense of who you are as a future scholar.
Once you have that base, you can begin making more strategic choices. Mentors and peers can help you navigate the system and make decisions that move you closer to your goals. In the long run, one of the most important things is to maintain a sense of freedom and stay true to yourself, your students, and your values.
It also matters who you work with. Many of my best collaborations have been with friends. When you work with people you trust and genuinely enjoy spending time with, the process becomes more rewarding. And if a collaboration is no longer working, it is okay to move on. Just make sure to finish what you started and avoid burning bridges.
