Tommi Laitio

Tommi is an internationally recognized leader and expert on public life, cities and public innovation.

Tommi’s advisory and consultancy builds on his background as a city executive and a researcher. Tommi was the City of Helsinki’s first Executive Director for Culture and Leisure where he led a team of 1,800 professionals delivering over 20 million annual arts and culture, sports, public library and youth work experiences. Based on his innovative leadership, he was appointed as the inaugural Bloomberg Public Innovation Fellow at Johns Hopkins University where his international research focused on the partnership capabilities of local governments in creating public spaces.

Career

  • The name of the company, Convivencia Urbana, means urban coexistence in Spanish. Convivencia is the ability to coexist with others across differences. It is a pragmatic approach for getting along while recoghizing differences. Convivencia does not strive for subsuming conflict and friction but for getting things done.

    Our projects combine exploratory research with a focus on how we get things done. We help organizations that want to turn the imminent friction brought by urban life into great places, services, partnerships, and organizational cultures.

    Recent and current clients include the City of Helsinki (FIN), Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design (FIN), The Gambrell Foundation (USA), Edmonton Public Library (CAN), Urban Libraries Council (USA), Center for Public Impact (USA), and Toronto Public Library (CAN). Read more here.

  • Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University was established in 2021 to advance public sector innovation across the globe. The fellowship is an opportunity for innovative public sector leaders to share their insights and contribute new knowledge.

    My research as the inaugural fellow focused on the skills and practices local governments need for public-private-people partnerships. I research library and park development in Amsterdam (NL), Fortaleza (BRA), Los Angeles (USA), Mecklenburg County (USA), and Philadelphia (USA).

    During the fellowship, I delivered dozens of keynotes on the future of public innovation and public spaces in Canada, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States.

  • In 2017, Helsinki decided to merge its arts and culture, sports, youth and library servives into one service division. I was elected to build and lead this new organization with 1,800 staff members and a budget of 270m€. I was part of the mayor’s executive team and led the coordination of the city’s resident engagement and health and wellbeing promotion work.

    Every year, we delivered more than twenty million culture, sports, youth, and library experiences from a symphony orchestra concert to soccer practice and from children’s summer camps to story times at the library.

    I take great pride in our day-to-day work, like opening our swimming halls on time, smiling to a senior coming to the library, keeping our beaches safe, premiering new compositions, taking care of the city’s historical and art collection, and building long-lasting relationships with teenagers at our youth clubs.

    During five years, we increased children’s and seniors’ access to culture and hobbies, created more equitable opportunities for migrant youth, increased the city’s investments into public art through a public art biennial, opened the central library Oodi, and improved public health through our science-based, city-wide and award-winning work on physical activity.

    During this time, I was also a member of the board for the University of Helsinki, Helsinki Partners, Helsinki Events Foundation, and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland.

  • Helsinki has one of the largest municipal youth work operations in Europe with more than 300 professional youth workers and 60 youth clubs.

    When I started leading the department in 2012, I was the city’s youngest and first openly gay department head. We renewed the department’s mission from a customer orientation to putting young people’s capabilities front and center and investing in partnerships. We strengthened and diversified our presence and service offering in Helsinki’s neighborhoods and shared power with youth on deciding our programming.

    Our focus on partnerships and youth experiences resulted in the largest participatory budgeting program in Finland, new partnerships ranging from arts institutions to the police, and the largest philanthropic donation in the city’s history for innovations in migrant integration.

    Due to a strong commitment to democracy and engagement, the mayor asked me to lead the development of Helsinki’s resident engagement model, leading to a biannual €8 million participatory budgeting program.

  • I am not afraid of abstract or concrete work. My favorite animal has always been a squirrel as they move fast between levels. i think leaders need to be able to translate strategic goals to concrete examples and highlight from concrete situations how they exemplify their strategic intent. My leadership has always built on three principles: help, framing and storytelling.

    During my career, I have trained hardware store salespeople on sustainability, cooked food on a scouting camp, been the main lobbyist for university students, carried beer for parties, managed an award-winning innovation program for student housing, worked as a security guard, organized cultural discussions at a theater, chaired the board for two nonprofits, worked as a newspaper journalist, coordinated a Europe-wide youth program, ran my own company, sold coffee and soft serve at a kiosk, and studied political science.