Spinnova appoints Pia Qvintus as Business Development Director

Spinnova is very pleased to announce the appointment of Ms Pia Qvintus as of 1 October. With her extensive background in fostering and promoting bio material innovation, Qvintus is a great choice to join Spinnova on the verge of its commercialization phase.

Pia Qvintus is a real pioneer in technological innovation management and enablement. She has spent most of her career on heading research organisations of the VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, dealing with the development of new biobased applications of forest biomass since 1994.

Her most recent position with the VTT was Technology Manager for commercialization of biobased materials and technologies. A chemist and MSc (Eng) by education, Qvintus’ most familiar research topics have been nanocellulose development and design driven applications of cellulose based materials.

Since 2016, she has been working for Business Finland’s Bio and Circular Economy programs, supporting international growth of Finnish startups and SMEs in the bioeconomy space. At Spinnova, Qvintus’ main objective will be to support and develop Spinnova’s current brand partnerships and ensuring future customers for the commercial production of the world’s most sustainable fibre.

– We are very happy to welcome Pia into the company. She is a key person in our upcoming commercialization steps, with the ideal experience for the job, comments Spinnova’s CEO Janne Poranen.

– I’m very familiar with Spinnova’s team and journey, yet their path to commercial phase will be a new and extremely interesting experience for me personally. Getting involved in an innovation born out of the VTT is a natural and a very desired move for me, Qvintus comments.

After successfully starting its test facility production line last spring, Spinnova now focuses on end product development with partnering brands, while starting to plan for the commercial phase of the sustainable fibre production.

Spinnova now employs 24 people.