The winner of the Helsinki Design Award is Reaktor

The largest design and architecture festival in the Nordic countries, Helsinki Design Week, together with the City of Helsinki, annually awards professionals in the design fields who contribute to making Helsinki a great place to live, study and work. This year, the Helsinki Design Award highlights business operations that utilize design expertise. The award has been granted to the Helsinki-based consultancy Reaktor, which operates in nine countries.

In 2022, the Helsinki Design Award, jointly presented by Helsinki Design Week and the City of Helsinki, recognized urban design. In 2023, the focus was on the importance of design education and learning. This year, the award aims to highlight the significance of design expertise as part of the creative economy and business operations.

Founded in 2000, Reaktor is a global technology company that designs and implements digital products and services. The design and strategy firm, which employs over 700 people, counts HBO, the Air France-KLM Group, ABB and Adidas among its clients. Nearly 90 percent of the employees are company owners. The CEO of the company is Pekka Horo.

“The significance of the creative economy to the national economy and exports is substantial. Creative fields such as design have an outsized impact because they add value to other sectors as well. Design expertise drives the growth and renewal of both companies and cities, as demonstrated by Reaktor’s many successful client projects,” emphasizes Helsinki’s Chief Design Officer Hanna Harris.

“In these times, the world needs companies that, together with their clients, strive to solve global wicked problems by fearlessly leveraging creative thinking and rapidly advancing technology. Helsinki needs more companies like Reaktor if we are to succeed in attracting international talent here,” says Kari Korkman, Chair of the Helsinki Design Award jury and Founder of HDW.

This year’s jury was composed of experts in design and business. The members included Helsinki’s Chief Design Officer Hanna Harris, City of Helsinki’s Head of Urban Design Piritta Hannonen, CEO of Aivan Minka Koukkunen, and start-up entrepreneur Mona Ismail. The jury was chaired by HDW Director and Founder Kari Korkman.

Reaktor’s designers Panu Korhonen and Minttu Paukkunen will also be interviewed by Helsinki Design Weekly at Paasivuorenkatu 3 on 13 September from 5:00 to 5:30 PM. The discussion will be in Finnish, and the event is open to the public with no prior registration required. You can find the entire discussion programme for Paasivuorenkatu 3 here.