From a farm girl to Computer Engineer in Finland to Nokia Project Manager & E-commerce owner in Asia and finally, Founder of Digital marketing agency in Canada.

Marika Arovuo grew up on a farm in Finland, in a small village of just 100 households. With parents who believe in gender equality, she was given responsibilities that taught her the growth mindset and taking care of others.

On top of schoolwork her daily chores included cooking, taking care of smaller siblings and cousins, and even driving big machines at the farm. With her routine, she learned the value of integrity.

“Only by demonstrating that you do a good job can you have repeated business in a small community,” Marika says.

She also learned resourcefulness, she often had to cook for a large group of people who worked at the farm and figure out a full 3 course meal from whatever was available in the fridge.

Little did she know that these experiences will hone her to become a successful business owner of a digital marketing agency one day.

From Europe to Asia and to North America

“I was lost after high school and took year off because I did not know which school to apply to because typical female occupations did not attract me,” says Marika.

She ended up studying Computer Science despite being outnumbered by boys in the class, 30 to 1. This was also where she met her husband, Ilari.

“He was the kindest guy, always there helping others with his wealth of knowledge about computers”, she recalls.

After her graduation, Marika started to work for Nokia in 1995. Two years later, she was offered a Project Manager role in Bangkok, where she moved alone. It was a mind-blowing experience for a young girl – try to operate in a foreign culture and completely different environment – that totally changed her as a person.

Living and working in a foreign culture also expanded her cultural understanding because of the paradigm shift.

“As a minority in a foreign culture, it makes you humble,” she confesses.

After relocating to Singapore and while working as a GPRS Engineer, she was part of a Nokia team that implemented the very first mobile network in Asia that had a capability to transfer data over air.

“You could suddenly browse internet on the move – and you can only now understand the power of that as everyone is connected to internet all the time,” she says.

Eight years later, when their first child was born, she made a drastic decision. With only two months maternity leave and no relatives around to take care of the baby she strongly felt that she should be the one take care of them by herself – and resigned Nokia.

But Marika is not the type of person who wants to stay still for too long. It was in 2006, only two months after their younger son was born, when she felt that she needed some ‘brainwork’. So, she co-founded a business that designed, produced, marketed & sold fashion accessories through an e-commerce. While running the operations she learned to set up websites, manage social media, master graphic design, analyze statistics and other digital marketing tactics.

“It was then when other the entrepreneurs started to ask my help on their digital marketing – and that’s when I found my true passion, to help other business owners to become successful by building a strong online presence for them”, tells Marika.

Life was going great in Singapore, but she and her family decided to move to Canada in 2015. This was when she incorporated her local digital marketing agency GRIT Online.

“I was lucky to bring clients with us, so we did not have to start from scratch,” she said.

With GRIT Online, she wanted to create a company where people love to work and provide a place for people to grow personally and professionally.

“When they can achieve more than they thought they could think of, they feel fulfilment and that makes people happy,” Marika says.

GRIT and Growth

It took several months to come up with a name for the company that would resonate with her values but finally GRIT Online was born. GRIT is an abbreviation of that represents the values of their company:

Growth Mindset – Anything is possible with hard work & dedication. Never stop improving and overcoming challenges.

Resourcefulness – Developing innovative solutions for our clients.

Integrity – Fairness and Honesty are never compromised. We always strive for a win-win partnership.

Teamwork – Our team, and yours. We all work together to accomplish our shared goals

GRIT Online is primarily serving small and medium enterprises to build a professional online presence, create a digital marketing strategy, and manage their digital channels.

To deliver quality output for their clients, Marika believes in a people-first approach.

“My mission is that no matter what business that I build, the leading principle will be employees wellbeing. When people have a chance to work on supportive work environment that provide them with enough challenges, possibility to personal and professional growth and a place where they feel safe even though they would make mistakes, they will glow!” she said.

For her, this directly benefits their clients. When the team feels good and safe at work, they are inspired, motivated and committed to deliver their best. They hunger for feedback and improve their deliverables based on that.

On top of running GRIT Online, Marika is also involved in many organizations and communities. She is a Vice President of the Canada-Finland Chamber of Commerce, where she is involved in organizing around 10 events a year. She is a Mentor at Innovation House, she manages several local hockey teams and coordinates their events. She volunteers her time to support both son’s  schools: elementary as hot lunch team leader and high school as parent council member. And with any spare time, she helps local non-profits by contributing her team’s time help them to promote their presence or events online. For Marika, giving back is important part of who she is – something that bring enormous joy for her to help others.

Marika met Gina Romero, founder of Connected Women through networking events while living in Singapore. Learning about the business model of Connected Women, Marika found the value of employing virtual teams and virtual assistants, especially for digital businesses such as hers.

“Finding work-life balance is harder for entrepreneurs than it is for those who attend 9 to 5 work. And even harder for women because they are typically hugely commitment to their family. So the technology involvement on helping to find work-life balance can be life-changing,” she says.

Marika found Gina to be an authentic leader and having employed Filipinos herself for the past 13 years, she had no doubt giving the platform a try.

“It takes a lot of time to find decent matched on other platforms. There is no guarantee if the hire is not a good fit. All filtering & interviewing need to be done by yourself. The overall coordination and follow up is missing from the other platforms I have used,” Marika says.

She described the experience of hiring virtual assistants from Connected Women as “stress-free.”

“The fact that some initial assessment and interviewing is done at Philippines end helps a lot. All applicants brought to my attention were relevant and had the skills required,” she adds.

Giving Back

Since using the platform, GRIT Online’s efficiency rate went through the roof and said that she would recommend Connected Women to other business owners in Canada.

We hire locals to the positions that require local presence and for example fluent English skills. But those admin skills that can be outsourced to VAs abroad really make sense.

“If I were to hire the same talent locally, my cost would be 6 times higher… I am impressed with the talent and dedication these ladies I have hired have. They have been needing less guidance that I thought and been able to conduct their duties with minimal guidance,” she says.

“Yet, I also know that it comes down to knowing how to manage VAs from different culture and time zone and organize processes and systems in place that will make working with VAs a success,” she adds.

It is her experience with Connected Women that Marika decided to give back once again and do her part in spreading the word about the group. This is why she has started hosting Connected Women meetups in Canada – a venue where she can connect busy female entrepreneurs with skilled freelancers that will help to free their time to what they do best and grow faster, with lower cost.

“I want to help other entrepreneurs to be successful on hiring virtual assistants from another culture and time zones. I have tons on expertise on that, tools, systems, processes, and cultural understanding to be used to be successful on hiring virtual assistants through Connected Women,” she says.

Since launching the first Connected Women Meetup, local entrepreneurs have been supportive and curious, according to Marika. They want to know more how Connected Women is different from other female business networking groups in Canada, she says.

It is because of this growing curiosity that Marika plans to organize more Connected Women Meetups because she earnestly believes that Filipino women can offer a lot to Canadian entrepreneurs.

“Freeing their time to do what they should be doing, running their business and concentrating to their core skills. They can outsource administrative work, mange social media accounts, email autoresponder, calendar, transcription, slideshows, and more,” Marika enumerates the benefits of hiring a virtual team.

Their next meetup is on May 22, 2019 where they plan to brainstorm the objectives of the local chapter. The growing community of interested entrepreneurs in Canada will also discuss topics they want to learn, experts they want to invite in the meetups, and so on.

In her journey of grit, growth, and giving back, Marika discovered that working in a foreign cultures will change one’s life.

“I believe that environment makes who you are 90%. The three or four closest people in our lives have the most impact on us,” Marika says.

While it may be daunting for some people to step out of their comfort zone or changing their environment, Marika believes in challenging oneself.

“Only by doing things that are out of your comfort zone will help you to become a better person.”

Marika Arovuo is the host of #ConnectedWomen #Meetup Canada where women entrepreneurs, professionals and freelancers get to share, connect, work and learn from one another in a fun and relaxed networking evening. The next #ConnectedWomen global #Meetup in is on July 3rd, we have 32 meetups happening including Singapore more details of the cities here.