Jarno Pajunen: “Being a fleet manager is about more than buying cars”

Last year, Jarno Pajunen (Nokia) won not one but two Fleet Europe Awards. Winning the European Fleet and Mobility Manager of the Year Award helped him kickstart new projects, he said. This year, it could be you!

The European Fleet and Mobility Manager of the Year Award goes to the person or team that has a responsibility and a direct influence on the vehicle fleet programme of a multinational in Europe and has best shown the deployment of a programme that combines the strengths of procurement efficiency and supplier management with the optimisation of vehicle emissions and safety. This manager or team also implement alternative mobility solutions, respecting the overall business strategy of the company and general stakeholder and employee satisfaction.

Does this description tick your boxes? Apply for the 2020 European Fleet and Mobility Manager of the Year Award!

What advice do you have for the fleet managers who want to apply for this award and what do they need to highlight in their candidacy?

Jarno Pajunen: “Please apply! This is really a great opportunity to stop and think about your own achievements and to summarise them, which helps you to gain an overview of your overall work and the end results. Just list a few key highlights, you don’t have to have the perfect programme or ultimate results globally. Great initiatives and actions, even local ones, matter.”

What has winning this award bring to you in your career and your fleet management project?

“It was received very well in our company. We have been able to demonstrate that Fleet and Mobility management is a much wider topic than just buying cars. This also resulted in providing interviews for external media outlets, and within the company higher level of cooperation between the different functions, kickstarting new projects like Procurement as a Service (PaaS) with mobility as the best example.”

How do you believe the role of the fleet manager will evolve with the restart after COVID-19 and the move into the New Normal of our business?

“We will see the impacts in the long run. In general people may travel less in the future and use virtual meetings more. It will be interesting to see how public transportation usage will get back to normal or if cars will be preferred transportation method for some time now.”

Apply for the 2020 European Fleet and Mobility Manager of the Year Award!

Image: Jarno Pajunen, holding his 2019 European Fleet and Mobility Manager of the Year Award