Staff

Ben Mellin - Managing Director

One of the founders of SecuryCast, Ben has a history working in the telecommunications industry. Before founding SecuryCast in 2003 together with friends and investors, he worked as Managing Director of one of the fastest growing privately held Finnish telecom operators. The last commercial project he was involved in was launching a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) service. He also held 2 board positions in daughter companies, one in Finland, the other one in Sweden.

He is also one of the founders of LinkoTec Oy (www.dazzboard.com)

Ben has focused on sales, negotiating contracts with record labels, content aggregators and movie distributors, analysing digital market opportunities and on creating business strategies in Finland and abroad.

After 10 years in the telco industry, he decided to look for new challenges. "I have to admit that founding SecuryCast was a bit risky as none of us had any previous experience working with the entertainment industry. But eventually it seems that it was the right decision, we are now the leading Digital Service provider on the Finnish market and we are expanding into new territories this year. It kind of proves our decision was the right one", Ben explains.

I like downhill skiing, floorball, football, sailing and being with my family. "This summer I will teach youngsters at my local yacht club the fine art of sailing, and I really look forward to that".

Ben majored in marketing and graduated from The Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, Finland in 1995. He holds a M. Sc. (Econ.) degree.

Marko Alanko - Business Development Director

Marko has a strong background in the areas of the music business. Starting in the late eighties he was in charge of booking agency’s sales. During that time he organised and consulted local and international artists’ bookings, festivals and entertainment programs and concepts.

1995 he moved to work for Sony Music Entertainment's Finnish office international promotion department as Promotion Manager. 1998 he began to run company's local department's marketing and promotion as Product Manager. From those days memorable cases were Ricky Martin and Bomfunk MC's, which both were international level success stories. Marko's personal strategic marketing visions and honest inspiration were involved also in both cases’ international exploitation developments.

In 2005 Marko was promoted to develop Sony Music's digital department. He was the first full-time employed in Finland to manage and develop digital music business. With his strong vision and background experience Sony Music reached market leader positions in Finland and the Baltic's.

Marko has focused on negotiating contracts, analysing the digital markets, developing logistical issues, creating business strategies, concepts locally and internationally. He has also helped music industry to understand and make business with other industries (operators, mobile and online media companies and brands). He is also requested presenter of digital business for other industries. Business partners have said that Marko is honest and active developer who gets things happen, but he always keeps his foots on earth and thinks 3 steps ahead. Memorable case highlight on his digital career has been Lordi’s Eurovision contest winning in 2006. He was in charge of band’s digital product portfolio, which was available in every digital store around Europe in real time straight after historical victory.

He has been a member of the marketing group of Emma Gala event (Finnish Music Awards) and local IFPI's digital business development team.

At SecuryCast Marko will continue to develop digital concepts, new business areas, collaboration with business partners and content owners. He is delighted to see new business partners from the book publishers and movie industries even the music side of the business continues to be challenging – "Sky's the Limit".

Marko Alanko holds BBA on marketing and is working for MBA studies of international marketing.

Kimmo Makkonen - Mobile Business Director

Company's mobile business specialist. Kimmo has a strong background (since 1993) in the areas of the Telecom- and Mobile businesses. He's one of the few respected specialists of the mobile business development in Finland.

He has been a Technical Director and the member of the board at the Dialtone Oy between 1993-2005. After 2005 he was promoted to Mobile Business Director position at the SecuryCast Oy.

Kimmo continues to develop content platform concepts, reporting and extend SecuryCast's mobile business development.

His legendary motto is: "Customer is the king"

Riku Kalliomäki - Content Acquisition Manager, Music Content & Services

Riku Kalliomäki entered the world of digital music in 2005. He developed digital music stores from their initial start up, among others the Helsingin Sanomat Musiikkilataamo digital music store and its mobile service application.

In 2007 Riku Kalliomäki joined SecuryCast Oy to develop digital services and he is still on that journey. Currently he is also responsible for content and making sure that the latest hits, evergreens and also lesser known artists and tunes are always available.

Riku's general interest in music and technical solutions make his work feel like a hobby. A dream job that is! His background includes studies both in business and IT.

Iiro Karesniemi - Technical Director

Ike is IT.

He started his career in the IT in banking in the mid 80s. He worked for the Osuuspankki during his studies his main area being banking transaction processing.

When he graduated he started to work for a major Finnish insurance company (Kansa) in the car insurances. In less than six months he was promoted to head designer.

Then Ike received a call from a consultant agency. This adventure which started in '88 was to last for over a decade.

During this time he worked for a major Finnish bank developing software and tools for the bank clerks.

One of the most important decisions was made when Ike was asked to design and implement a digital archive to replace the existing micro film archive. The system ended up being the largest digital archive in the Nordic Countries and was a huge success. This and its successors currently hold the bank account statements, image archives for driving licenses, passports etc. in several banks and institutions.

While doing all of this Ike created a production control system responsible for producing most of the payment cards in Denmark and Sweden.

The next task was to help Nokia to develop tools for the switching platforms. One part of this project was to interview the personnel and arrange required training.

When Ike left the company in '99 he was a senior consultant and partner.

The next job was to help SuperTel grow from a national telecom operator to international. This was a huge success. The operations reached Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and United Kingdom. The business was finally sold to Jippii Group Oyj. The work continued there, but only for a while.

The next job was to create the back-end systems for the Internet kiosks for the Finnish post offices in '02.

Ike started as the Director for Research and Development at the Cubio Communications Ltd in '03. Everybody remembers when it got to be possible to change the telephone communications operator without changing your phone number. While making this possible Ike created a revolutionary billing system for the telecom carrier business. When put to work it started with tens of millions calls per month and more than a third of the traffic to the east of Finland.

When this was done it was time to start SecuryCast with Ben in November '03.