Familiar faces to the helm
Riika-Maria Iljin and Lauri Iljin have been working in the port of Turku since they were teenagers.
Entrepreneur Kimmo Iljin, who has been the head of a logistics company operating in the port of Turku for more than four decades, is beaming with satisfaction. He has finally completed the generational change process he has been planning for years.
The generational change in the family businesses was completed at the turn of the year, when Kimmo’s daughter, Riika-Maria Iljin, was appointed Managing Director of Forlog Oy and his son, Lauri Iljin, as CEO of Turku Stevedoring Oy.
Everything went exactly as planned.
“In 2020, we held a family meeting, in which I asked if the kids were interested in continuing to run the businesses in the future. They all wanted to continue in the family businesses”, Kimmo Iljin recalls.
In the first phase, in 2023, Riika-Maria and Lauri were appointed as the operational managers of the companies. After two years of intensely studying the management of TurkuSteve and Forlog, it was finally time for Kimmo to hand over the reins to the younger generation.
Growing up in the port
Port operator Turku Stevedoring (more commonly known as TurkuSteve) is strictly a stevedoring company according to the Iljins. The company’s market share in the port of Turku has increased significantly in recent years.
TurkuSteve is the only significant family business in the stevedoring sector in Finland. The company’s premises and workshop are located in the port of Turku.
Forlog is a service company operating in the logistics sector that offers customised, comprehensive logistics solutions for heavy industry to its customers, including in the metal industry. The provided services range from the unloading and loading of vehicles and containers by forklift to the cutting of wood-based panels and provision of packaging services.
Forlog’s office and warehouses are located in the Pansio logistics area and the production centre for sawing and packaging activities is in Runosmäki.
Lauri and Riika-Maria both state, nearly in unison, that the organisations of the family businesses are relatively small, which enables rapid decision-making in a sector dominated by large corporations. In Lauri and Riika-Maria, the companies are getting apt leaders whose faces are familiar to almost everyone in the port of Turku.
“Lauri and I started working in the family business already when we were 14 years old. In other words, we have been involved in the life of the port since we were young, so we are familiar with the operating environment and it is, therefore, natural for us to continue our father’s work”, says Riika-Maria Iljin.
Both companies are strong
The new heads of the companies view the outlook for both TurkuSteve and Forlog as bright in the short and long term.
“In the stevedoring sector, everyone has the same collective agreements and the same types of work machinery, so the competition is tough, but I think the outlook for our company is promising”, says Lauri Iljin.
Riika-Maria Iljin also has a positive view of the horizon.
“Forlog’s future is looking quite good. We stand on firm footing after working specifically to find a balance across several sectors. We are particularly looking for significant growth from our packaging and cutting services in Runosmäki”, she states.
Text: Esko Pihkala
Photos: Lennart Holmberg
