From Ghana to Fin­land: Luku­manu’s path to Project Man­age­ment

In a world full of oppor­tu­ni­ties, Luku­manu Iddrisu’s remark­able jour­ney took him from the vibrant streets of Ghana to the unique city of Vaasa, Fin­land.

With moti­va­tion and a thirst for knowl­edge, Luku­manu Iddrisu start­ed his adven­ture to pur­sue his dreams. In this sto­ry, we dive into Luku­manu’s inspir­ing jour­ney, from his stud­ies in inter­na­tion­al busi­ness to his role as a Project Man­ag­er for the Vaasa Spouse Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vaasa.

Climb­ing the Career Lad­der

Luku­manu’s path to Fin­land began in 2014 when he made the bold deci­sion to study his bachelor’s degree in Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness at Vaasa Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ence. He also con­tin­ued his stud­ies com­plet­ing his master’s degree in Strate­gic Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vaasa. Leav­ing behind his home­land and embrac­ing a new cul­ture, he was ready to embrace the chal­lenges and seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties that await­ed him.

After com­plet­ing his stud­ies, Luku­manu’s ded­i­ca­tion and hard work led him to secure a posi­tion as a Project Man­ag­er at Uni­ver­si­ty of Vaasa. Luku­manu thrives in man­ag­ing com­plex projects, lead­ing teams, and ensur­ing suc­cess­ful out­comes.

In your opin­ion, what are some of the key char­ac­ter­is­tics of Finnish work­ing cul­ture?

– Finnish work­ing cul­ture has proac­tive inde­pen­dence, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and low hier­ar­chy. Based on my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence at Wärt­silä, it doesn’t mat­ter whether you are a trainee or a boss, if you have an idea, they give you a chance to share. So, there is room for learn­ing, and they lis­ten to you whether you are a boss or not. Giv­ing a lis­ten­ing ear to peo­ple to share their ideas.

Luku­manu will also be one of the pre­sen­ters in the Mega­Match­mak­ing Event!

The Mega­Match­mak­ing event is the biggest recruit­ment event in Oulu in which brings local job seek­ers and employ­ers togeth­er. The event will take place on 14th of Sep­tem­ber at 9:00–15:00 in Tullisali, Oulu.

– I strug­gled to get a job in Fin­land, it took me 5 to 6 years to get a job in my field. Work­ing at the cham­ber of com­merce and col­lab­o­rat­ing with HR and oth­er com­pa­nies, I came to real­ize how the job mar­ket works. Since then, I have been on a mis­sion to let stu­dents and job seek­ers under­stand the process­es in the job mar­ket and how they can stand out. I have the will­ing­ness to help get the job of their dreams, that’s why I am tak­ing part of the Mega­Match­mak­ing Event.

Main top­ic: Net­work­ing and build­ing rela­tion­ship job mar­ket

How to appro­pri­ate­ly net­work with Finnish indus­try play­ers and how you can turn the net­work­ing into build­ing a rela­tion­ship

Pre­sen­ta­tion Time: 9.30–10.15 AM, Inter­na­tion­al Stage

– Peo­ple should join the Mega­Match­mak­ing Event to get the chance to get to know and net­work with the com­pa­nies, also to present them­selves to increase their net­work to open more doors. Sec­ond­ly, peo­ple should come and lis­ten to my pre­sen­ta­tion to under­stand tran­si­tion­ing a net­work into a rela­tion­ship.

Vaasa’s Vibrant Com­mu­ni­ty

Liv­ing in Vaasa for the past 9 years, Luku­manu has ful­ly embraced the oppor­tu­ni­ties that the city offers. He cher­ish­es the friend­ships he has made and the diverse per­spec­tives he encoun­ters every day. Besides the work­ing life Luku­manu enjoys his foot­ball train­ing as well as read­ing.

“Man­ches­ter Unit­ed is my favorite foot­ball team”

Is there any­thing sur­pris­ing about living/working in Fin­land?

– If you look at the cul­tur­al dynam­ic per­spec­tive, Fin­land is from the cold region, so they are not that out­go­ing and talk­ing to them was a chal­lenge in the begin­ning. But not until I start­ed to learn the Finnish lan­guage and start­ed engag­ing with them it became eas­i­er and they were more open to me. So, of course in the begin­ning it was sur­pris­ing because reach­ing out to them was dif­fi­cult and in Ghana every­one is very out­go­ing.

Through Luku­manu’s sto­ry, we learn the impor­tance of pur­su­ing our pas­sions, embrac­ing diverse cul­tures, and seiz­ing the chances that come our way. Luku­manu’s jour­ney is a reminder that no dream is too big and no dis­tance too far when deter­mi­na­tion and per­se­ver­ance guide us on our path to suc­cess.

Advice from Luku­manu for those who has been plan­ning on mov­ing and work­ing in Fin­land:

• Be proac­tive
• Learn the cul­ture and how peo­ple behave so you are not sur­prised when mov­ing
• Will­ing­ness to net­work with peo­ple and build rela­tion­ships. Know the peo­ple bet­ter
• In the work­ing per­spec­tive, try to involve your­self in strate­gic ini­tia­tives if pos­si­ble or vol­un­tary activ­i­ties to get know a lot of peo­ple, the more you expand your net­work in the work­place or beyond the work­place the bet­ter

“If you speak Finnish, con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple becomes eas­i­er, that has been my expe­ri­ence”

Please note

There is a free non-stop bus ser­vice to Mega­Match­mak­ing from Oulu city cen­ter. The bus will run between Tor­in­ran­ta – Tullisali on 14 Sep­tem­ber from 8.45 to 15.15. The depar­ture point in Tor­in­ran­ta is Kaar­len­väylä.

Text: Nada Abass