Clevenio, which specializes in the automation of building prospect data, is strengthening its operational management. Aki Hokkanen, who built international sales and sales operations at Howspace, will start as the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO). The appointment is a direct response to Clevenio’s 3x growth and goal to conquer international markets.

Clevenio has grown rapidly during the first half of 2026: the tool launched in January 2025 is already in use by over 250 companies and customer satisfaction (NPS 95) is exceptional. With this growth, the company is moving from a “founder-led” phase to a systematic commercial scaling phase, with an international focus.

Sales process and Sales Ops professional in the engine room

Aki Hokkanen has worked at Howspace in key roles for the past few years, including Global Head of Sales and Head of Partner Sales. He has led international sales teams in the Nordics, Benelux, the UK and North America. Before becoming COO, Aki was an investor and advisor to Clevenio.

“At Clevenio, we have seen that the product works and there is more demand than we can currently serve. In order to scale this to the world without breaking the bank, we need someone in the engine room who has done this before. Aki has been building internationally sustainable sales processes and teams around them for almost nine years before this. The fact that he already knows us as an investor makes the start really effective,” says Santtu Seppänen, CEO of Clevenio.

The company’s board also sees the value brought by the new COO as significant.

“Aki’s appointment is a strategically critical step in Clevenio’s growth story. We are entering a phase where the product’s competitive advantage has been strongly proven and scaling the international sales machine is taking center stage. Aki’s exceptional ability to build global sales operations is exactly the expertise the company needs at this stage,” says Aleksi Halsas, Chairman of the Board of Clevenio.

Focus on sales process bottlenecks

In his COO role, Hokkanen is responsible for scaling Clevenio’s operational operations, developing sales processes and strengthening the team. The focus is on Clevenio’s own core promise: making sales more efficient by eliminating manual data work.

“Clevenio solves a problem that every sales director struggles with: how to get salespeople’s time to generate value, i.e. sell as efficiently as possible, instead of searching for customers. I have followed the company in an advisor role and seen how the team is achieving great results. Now is a privileged moment to jump into the operational everyday life and build the next international winner from Clevenio together,” Aki Hokkanen comments.

For more information:

Santtu Seppänen
CEO, Clevenio
santtu@clevenio.com
+358 50 464 9918

Aki Hokkanen
COO, Clevenio
aki.hokkanen@clevenio.com
+358 40 5858 051

Clevenio in brief:

Clevenio is a Finnish SaaS company that helps B2B sales teams eliminate unnecessary time spent on prospecting. Launched in January 2025, the tool automates building of high-quality prospect data, allowing salespeople to focus on closing the deal. https://clevenio.com