Kaisa Hietala Keynote Speaker

Experienced corporate leader in strategic transformation in the energy sector
Helps companies to transform the challenges of environmental megatrends into business opportunities and growth.
Partner and co-owner of GAIA Consulting

Kaisa Hietala's Biography

Kaisa Hietala is an experienced business and sustainability executive who helps companies to transform the challenges of environmental megatrends into business opportunities and growth.

Ms. Hietala is an experienced leader in strategic transformation in the energy sector who began her career in upstream oil and gas exploration. Ms. Hietala served as the EVP of Renewable Products at Neste, a petroleum refining and marketing company, for five years ending in 2019. During her tenure, the Renewable Products segment’s revenues grew by 1.6x and operating profits grew by 4x. She played a central role in the strategic transformation of Neste into the world’s largest and most profitable producer of renewable products, which was named by Harvard Business Review as one of the “Top 20 Business Transformations of the Last Decade” in 2019.

Currently, Ms. Hietala serves on the Board of Exxon Mobil and the Board of Smurfit Kappa Group, a global corrugated packaging company and is the Chairman of the Board at Tracegrow, a private Finnish sustainable fertilizers company. She is a member of the Supervisory Board of Oulu University and was a former Board member of Kemira Oy, a Finnish specialty chemicals company, for the past 5 years. She joined the Board of Rio Tinto in March 2023.

Ms. Hietala holds a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge, UK and a Master of Science degree from University of Oulu, Finland.

The energy sector

Renewables and sustainability

Circular Economy

Transformational Leadership

Climate responsibility

Shareholder activism and sustainability

She has led one of Europe’s standout energy transitions, helping steer Neste’s shift into renewable products and delivering rapid growth in both revenues and operating profit.
She shows leaders how to turn environmental megatrends into strategy, using board-level insight from global heavy industry and energy to connect sustainability to competitive advantage.
She brings practical credibility from operating inside legacy hydrocarbons and scaling renewables, helping organisations navigate the trade-offs of transition with clearer priorities and faster execution.
She equips boards and executives to stress-test decarbonisation plans against shareholder expectations, regulation and technology change, drawing on current board roles across energy, mining and packaging.