Tarja is our Finance and Accounting Specialist. She manages ecoinvent’s financial and accounting activities and provides support to the Sales team. As of 2024, Tarja has been with ecoinvent for ten years. We asked her to share some insights on her ecoinvent experience.
At the moment, I am a Finance and Accounting Specialist. I work in the Finance team with Fabrice and am mainly responsible for accounts receivable, as well as big resellers’ monthly maintenance extensions.
Flexibility. The fact that I can work quite independently from my home office, even from abroad, makes it possible for me to spend longer at home in Finland.
It has really changed a lot! I started as an assistant for Administration (HR), Accounting, and Sales, basically everything but the technical stuff. We were only six people.
Over ten years, ecoinvent grew a lot and my workload increased, so it was impossible to do it alone any longer. My main focus has remained in sales and finances. In Sales, more people were employed over the years, but only two years ago Fabrice joined ecoinvent. Until then, I was alone in finance.
The change is huge. From a six-person start-up in three small rooms to a company of over seventy employees with a huge office.
In the first years, it was very familiar. We all had lunch together, we all talked with each other, and we all knew each other well. Now, everything is more organized, there are team leads, and different tools to be used.
There are many nice and funny memories. One I find really funny is the story of how we moved from EMPA to Technopark.
We had a small van where we put some plants and a sofa, as well as documents and our computers. Gregor, our former executive director, went by bike to the new office to help us unpack. Me and my former colleague, Linda, sat in the van and Tereza, another former colleague, drove around Zürich, trying to find the right way to Technopark.
Back then we did really everything ourselves. We had our first apéro in Technopark and me and Linda carried the big apéro food plates from Migros to the office in our hands. We baked the cookies ourselves and prepared gift bags. Also, our summer BBQs were simple but fun. We went shopping and carried the food to the park and prepared the BBQ ourselves.
If Tarja’s ecoinvent story inspires you, check out our careers page for more information about our current job openings. You can read more milestone stories on our blog.