Laitinen, James

James Laitinen

 

James Laitinen is a Regional Director at Alma Consulting Group, a management consulting firm specializing in research & development tax credits across Canada
and throughout Europe.

James has experience with financial management, including performance measurement systems, due diligence, strategic tax planning, and value-based management. Critical skill sets include project management, process improvement, and strategic business analysis.

Mr. Laitinen’s background includes several sectors - private companies, public companies, government, and nonprofit's. Mr. Laitinen frequently contributes volunteering his time to the Certified Management Accountants – Vancouver Chapter, Toastmasters International, and APICS: The Association for Operations Management.

Personally, he is an enthusiast of stand-up comedy, hockey, golf and a proud supporter of the Canadian Red Cross. To learn about James’ latest adventures he is @jlate on twitter.

Key Drivers of Innovation – Global Lessons to Drive Growth

The demands of global customers are changing the tides and fortunes of Canadian corporate organizations. The essence of successful organizations is build on a foundation of innovation that brings new ideas, leverages the talent and skill set in our human resources and empowers organizations to bring state of the art products to market.

The benefit of innovation drives value for shareholders and customers alike. But how does innovation happen and what are the key drivers behind successful organizations that implement innovation in their core business and derive value through the use of innovation tax credits to reduce financial risk and improve bottom line performance.

 

James Laitinen spoke to us in January 2013.

 

Midsummer Festival

Each June we have a booth at the Midsummer Festival on the grounds of the Scandinavian Community Centre. In addition to handing out information about our club, we also sign up new members. Everyone is invited to come out to enjoy this fun annual event. If you have time available, why not consider volunteering to help with our booth?

Christmas Party

 

In December, instead of our usual monthly dinner meeting, we have our annual Christmas party. Our guests are welcomed into the hall by the cheerful sounds of the Runeberg Choir. We have a fabulous Scandinavian Christmas dinner, followed by dancing to live music.

Monthly Dinners

Our dinner schedule for 2024 will be: Feb 14th, Apr 10th, TBD. Social hour starts at 6:00pm, dinner at 7:00pm and the dinner speaker starts at about 8:00pm. The dinner is Scandinavian and usually starts with herring and salmon open-faced sandwich appetizers and ends with coffee/tea and delicious Scandinavian desserts. The theme for the after dinner talk is usually business related and hopefully with a Scandinavian connection but we also schedule other speakers of interest. Two meetings of the year we have no speaker. Instead, in February we have our Annual General meeting where we discuss business for the upcoming year and elect our new board of directors. In June, we have our annual joke-telling contest and discover who, among us, is the best teller of jokes.