Johannes Partanen

Mr. Johannes Partanen is the inventor of Tiimiakatemia’s award-winning teampreneurship methods. He has over 38 years of experience as a lecturer of marketing, during 18 of which he has been the Head Coach of Tiimiakatemia Jyväskylä. During his career he has educated thousands of students, teachers and managers in vocational schools, university settings and adult education programs. 

Mr. Partanen has been awarded numerous awards and tributes, such as Pellervo Insititute’s Golden Gebhard Medal for long-tem work in promoting the establishment of co-operative companies (2011). The President of Finland, Ms. Tarja Halonen, awarded him the honorary title of Opetusneuvos (Counsellor of Education, the Finnish equivalent of a knighthood) for his lifework as an educator in 2010. 

Mr. Partanen is a voracious reader of management books, reading approximately 200 each year. His idols and sources of inspiration are the Greek philosopher Socrates, Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, The Body Shop’s founder Anita Roddick, Finland’s Second World War Marshal and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Mannerheim and the popular American idol Marilyn Monroe. Mr. Partanen firmly believes that we must not teach but help people learn in social settings (such as teams and networks) where theory is vigorously applied to practice and vice versa.

Mr. Partanen is a fanatical fan of Finnish ice hockey and Olympic sports (especially women’s esthetical gymnastics because of the influence of his wife, Mrs. Kirsti Partanen). He has three children and he lives in Central Finland, Jyväskylä.

Since October 2011 Mr. Partanen has worked as Senior Advisor of Tiimiakatemia Adult Education. His current personal mission is to establish a massive number of Tiimiakatemias in the world and build an international Tiimiakatemia Learning Network that will connect all of them.