Marko Rillo
Marko Rillo — portrait
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Bio

Strategy consultant, trainer, and digital product manager.

I design and run processes that move a group from competing agendas to shared direction. Alongside consulting, I am co-founder of the EdTech organisation Helge.app and Senior Lecturer at Estonian Business School.

26 years of professional experience, 14 in leadership positions. PhD in Strategic Management (University of St. Gallen, 2015). Work has taken me to 20+ countries — from Kosovo to Ukraine, from Finland to Saudi Arabia.

My combination is three things most people do separately: analytical work (doctoral research, quantitative methods, data modelling), work with people (facilitation, training, coaching), and building (a 90-person IT company as CEO, a SaaS product, a mobile application). That combination is most useful at the moment a strategic decision has to be implemented — not only written down.

Download CV (PDF)LinkedIn

Education

  • PhD, Strategic Management — University of St. Gallen, 2015 (strategy process and cyclical ambidexterity; quantitative analysis, NVivo, system dynamics).
  • MSc, Economics — Tallinn University of Technology, 2003.
  • BBA, International Business Administration — Estonian Business School, 2000.
  • B.Eng., Software Engineering — Tallinn University of Technology, 2026.

Current roles

  • Director / Owner / Consultant, CreaWity OÜ (since 2004).
  • Co-founder, board member, Helge Kool NGO (since 2019).
  • Senior Lecturer, Estonian Business School — Strategic Management, Innovation Management, Change Management (since 2015).

Selected clients and projects

  • Danfoss
  • Estonian Energy
  • Estonian Health Insurance Fund
  • Estonian National Agency of Medicines
  • Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs
  • Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Nokia Networks
  • Samsung UK
  • Telia Baltics
  • Hansabank/Swedbank Baltics
  • SenseAir Sweden
  • Baltic American Freedom Foundation
  • Konecranes
  • EIT
  • CMA CGM

Publications and books

Serious Work. How to Facilitate Meetings and Workshops with the LEGO® Serious Play® Method (with Sean Blair). ProMeet, London, 2016. Amazon →

Peer-reviewed articles on strategic management. Full list: Google Scholar / ETIS →

Languages & skills

Languages: Estonian (native) · English (C2) · Finnish (C1/B2) · Russian (B2/B1).

Analysis: SPSS, Stata, NVivo, Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, system dynamics (Vensim).

Software: Python, JavaScript, Node.js, .NET, Java, Flutter/Dart.

Design / PM: Adobe, Figma, Visio, MS Project, Jira, Trello.