"It is a pleasure to welcome Sami Riekkola to our Executive Team. His long and versatile experience in our automation business has helped him to gain a thorough understanding of the business and its customers in different markets. With this background, I believe Sami is in an excellent position to lead our Automation business line and to grow it further. I want to thank Sakari Ruotsalainen for his strong dedication and excellent contribution to Valmet's success in the past years. It has been a true pleasure to work with Sakari. We wish Sakari all the best for his well-earned retirement days," says Pasi Laine, President and CEO of Valmet.

Sami Riekkola is currently employed at Valmet as Vice President, Energy and Process Systems in the Automation business line. Sami started his career in 1998 as automation project engineer at Valmet and has since then worked in a variety of automation positions within the company in several geographical locations in Europe and Australia. During the years, he has gathered excellent experience from automation products, project management, sales and customer management, as well as automation related services.

Mr. Sakari Ruotsalainen, the current Business Line President, Automation, has decided to retire as of September 30, 2018 after a long and successful career at Valmet.