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Ari Backholm is the Vice President of Marketing and Product Management. In this position, Backholm leads global marketing strategy, product offering and roadmap to secure and enhance SEVEN's leading position in the market. Backholm has over 10 years of experience in wireless telecommunications and information technology. Ari Backholm joined SEVEN in April 2005 through SEVEN's acquisition of Smartner, which he was co-founding in 1999. At Smartner, Backholm served as Executive Vice President and headed Smartner's product development, marketing and business development organizations. By decisively driving customer needs to engineering, opening up Smartner's operations in new territories such as Asia Pacific, and securing partnerships with leading players in the mobile industry, including Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Sony Ericsson, and Microsoft, he was instrumential in rapid growth of Smartner from its foundation to serving over 30 operators around the world and achieving awards of distinction, such as Frost & Sullivan 2005 Entrepreneurial Company Award and Tornado top 100 private technology companies in Europe. Before joining Smartner, Backholm worked for Sedecon Consulting where he oversaw strategy, business development and knowledge management projects for major Finnish and international corporations. Backholm holds an M.Sc. (Tech) with Distinction in Industrial Management from Helsinki University of Technology and 3 patents in mobile technologies. | 