Frontiers 2026 — Day 2: Wednesday, July 1

Information about  Day 2: Wednesday, July 1 Presentations

For detailed information about the presentations at the 2026 Frontiers in Service Conference, please refer to the file below.¨

Plenary Session: Innovation Under Pressure: Nordic Firms in an Era of Continuous Disruption | 09:00, Assembly Hall

Nordic countries are often described as stable environments for innovation—characterised by stability, trust, and predictable institutions. But what happens when disruption becomes continuous rather than occasional? This plenary brings together senior leaders from three Nordic companies—Fazer, Reima and Volvo—alongside academic insight to examine how innovation is changing under conditions of persistent uncertainty. Moving beyond the assumption of stable foundations, the session explores how organisations make innovation decisions when pressures are immediate, trade-offs are sharper, and long-term direction is harder to sustain.

Christoph Vitzthum has been President and CEO of Fazer Group since 2013. Prior to Fazer, he held several senior leadership roles at Wärtsilä Oyj Abp, including President of Services and Executive Vice President (2009–2013), President of Power Plants (2006–2009), and President of Wärtsilä Propulsion (2002–2006). Mr. Vitzthum is Chairman of the Board of Hanken School of Economics and also serves as Chairman of the Board of Elisa Oyj, ETLA Economic Research and the Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA, as well as Chairman of Varma’s Supervisory Board.

Heikki Lempinen is the CEO of Reima, a globally leading Finnish kids’ activewear brand. Since 1944, Reima’s journey has been rooted in commercial innovation, and in recent years increasingly driven by digitalization and global growth. Heikki began his career in digital commerce at Zalando after completing his PhD at Aalto University School of Business. He is particularly interested in how leadership, purpose‑driven brands, and digitalization translate into long‑term sustainable business value.

Hans Lind has spent nearly three decades at the intersection of technology, business development, and service innovation - first at Ericsson, and for the past 19 years at the Volvo Group. At Volvo, he has held a series of senior roles spanning service portfolio management at Volvo Buses, innovation and foresight at Connected Solutions, and most recently IT project management. Throughout, a recurring theme has been how large industrial companies create customer benefits through services rather than products alone. Since 2024, Hans is also an industrial PhD student at CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, where he is researching risk and value in servitized business models; questions he has been grappling with in practice for much of his career. 

Per Kristensson is a Professor and the Director of the Service Research Center at Karlstad University in Karlstad, Sweden. Kristensson’s research primarily focuses on value creation, innovation, and organizational change, typically emphasizing the customer. His work has been published in nearly all leading service journals. He has won the Grand Prix speakers award at Karlstad University and delivered a TEDx talk on the topic of creativity during the Karolinska Institute’s 100-year anniversary in 2011. In 2024, he received the Christian Grönroos Service Research Award. 

Kristina Heinonen is Professor at Hanken School of Economics (Finland) and the Norwegian School of Economics (Norway). She earned her Phd from Hanken in 2004. She serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Services Marketing and Co-Chair of the American Marketing Association’s Service Special Interest Group (SERVSIG). She serves as Director of the Innovation Index Coalition (IIC), an international collaborative effort developing comparable, longitudinal indicators across countries and sectors, while leading innovation measurement initiatives at the national level in Finland and Norway. .

Special Sessions  | Wednesday, 1 July

AI for Teaching: Rethinking how we educate future service managers in the age of AI | 10:45, A309

AI is reshaping services; but how should it reshape us teaching Services? Many of us are Services educators and face the challenge: integrating AI as a teaching tool and preparing students to understand AI in service contexts. This interactive session explores both dimensions. To begin, scholars share concrete use cases of AI-enabled services education across universities. Participants then exchange best and worst practices, opportunities, and concerns. We conclude with a panel discussion on the future of education with passionate scholars like Lorena Blasco, Jochen Wirtz, Werner Kunz and others. The session fosters collective reflection on how our field could and should shape AI-enabled learning. 

Building Your Own AI Experiment in 30 Minutes: A Hands-On Workshop with ResearchChatAI | 11:45, A210

This hands-on workshop introduces ResearchChatAI, a free, open-source platform that enables researchers to design and run controlled experiments with conversational AI agents, without writing any code. Participants will create their own AI agent, configure experimental conditions, and connect the setup to a survey tool like Qualtrics. The workshop covers practical use cases across management, services and marketing research, and demonstrates how scholars can move beyond vignette-based designs toward ecologically valid AI experiments. Participants should bring a laptop with internet access. No prior technical experience is required.

Lunch |12:45  

Ground-floor restaurant and Auditorium Maxen on the second floor  | 
 

Plenary: Shaping Conditions for Sustainable Living in Organisations, Cities, and Society | 14:00, Assembly Hall

This plenary brings together perspectives from industry and public leadership to explore how sustainability is enacted across levels—from organisational practices to the design of cities and societies. 

Industry Keynote  

Heli Anttila is Vice President of Research & Development at Fazer Group, leading the company’s group‑level R&D and innovation agenda. She heads the newly established research and product development function, accelerating innovation across Fazer’s businesses. Anttila brings extensive experience in food innovation, consumer insights, and new product development from across Fazer’s confectionery, bakery, and lifestyle foods businesses. With a strong background in food science and business, she focuses on building innovation capabilities, scaling new solutions, and supporting Fazer’s long‑term growth through sustainable and consumer‑driven product development.

Public Leadership Keynote

Jan Vapaavuori serves as Senior Counsel at Geradin Partners in Helsinki and as the chairman of the Finnish Export Credit Agency Finnvera. He has a keen interest in global urban affairs serving currently at the Bloomberg New Economy Cities Council, and is an active lecturer and advisor on urban leadership and urban development related topics. Mr. Vapaavuori is the former Mayor of Helsinki and has previously served as Vice-President of the European Investment Bank in Luxemburg, Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, Member of the Finnish Parliament, and President of the Finnish Olympic Committee. 

Meet the Editors of Non-Service Journals  | 16:15, Futurum
 

Panelists: Arne de Keyser (Associate Editor, Journal of Business Research), Eric Arnould (Co-Editor, International Journal of Research in Marketing), Lilliana Bove (Associate Editor, Psychology & Marketing), Suvi Nenonen (Co-Editor-in-Chief, Industrial Marketing Management); Moderator: Robert Ciuchita (CERS – Hanken School of Economics)
*Please note that this session lasts 60 minutes.
 

Social Reception| 19:00

The social reception on July 1 will be held at Maxine, in the heart of Helsinki’s Kamppi district. 
Address: Urho Kekkosen katu 1, 6th floor

Maxine is a rooftop venue located on the 6th floor of Kamppi  Shopping Centre in central Helsinki, offering panoramic views and a flexible space for events, dining, and nightlife. Kamppi itself is a major urban hub combining metro, long-distance bus terminal, retail, and  dining in a dense, multi-level city centre complex.