Jokke Paananen

Jokke Topias Paananen is one of the founders of Intera Partners, a Finnish private equity firm founded in 2007 by Tuomas Lang, Jokke Paananen and Harri Hollmén. Intera describes itself as focused on the growth and internationalization of Finnish and Swedish companies, especially service and technology businesses with €10-200 million in revenue at investment.

Paananen’s private equity career began in the late 1990s. In his Intera-sourced biography, he says he worked on larger private equity transactions at Industri Kapital and CVC in Stockholm before returning to Finland to build his own firm. MarketScreener lists prior roles including Assistant Director at IK Partners and Investment Director at CVC Advisers from 2005 to 2007.

At Intera, Paananen served as a founder, investment professional, Managing Partner and CEO. Intera announced in 2022 that Juhana Kallio would become Managing Partner and that Paananen would continue as Chairman of the Board; current public listings now identify him as an Advisor at Intera, while Intera’s current website lists Juhana Kallio as Managing Partner and Janne Näränen as Chair of the Board. His education is listed as an M.S. from Aalto University School of Business.

• Intera invests in Finnish and Swedish companies with sales of €10-200 million at the time of investment, focusing on service and technology companies.
• The firm’s preferred situations include funding growth and acquisitions, industry consolidations, ownership restructuring in family-owned companies, and divestments of non-core operations from larger corporates.
• Intera looks for industries where a company can grow fast and build a significant market position, along with predictable positive cash flow and the possibility of majority ownership.
• The firm’s model is active ownership: it works closely with owners and management, supports strategy execution through professional board work, and helps provide financial resources for growth.
• Intera emphasizes internationalization and acquisitions as recurring value-creation levers. Its stated goal is “to support the companies and entrepreneurs, leading to a significant increase in the companies’ sales and a clear strengthening of the strategic position.”
• In Paananen’s own Intera-sourced biography, he describes the firm’s goal as being “the best partner for growth driven entrepreneurs and management teams in our local market.”