Markko Vaarnas

Markko Vaarnas has been responsible for the successful expansion of Global Intelligence Alliance Group (GIA) across four continents, since he co-founded the company in 1995. GIA today has 11 offices and over 130 employees.

He is a recognized thought leader in organizational decision-making processes and specializes in advising companies on how to optimize their Market Intelligence programs In his current managerial role, he specializes in mergers and acquisitions, post-merger integration, strategic planning, growth management and international business development.

Markko has been a guest speaker at numerous international conferences such as Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), Vision in Business (ViB) and IIR. He is also the author of the book "Market Information in the Internationalization of Companies" published by FINTRA in 2005 as well as "The Handbook of Market Intelligence" published by Wiley in September 2011.

Markko graduated from the Helsinki School of Economics with a Master's degree (International Business). He is married with two children, and speaks fluent English and Finnish, and is also able to converse with German and Swedish. In his free time he enjoys playing soccer and coaches a junior soccer team.