Our alumna Lyydia Kilkki: Curiosity and courage will take you far

Lyydia Kilkki was ten years old when she moved abroad with her family, first to India and later to the United States. Eight years later, in 2015, she decided to return to her home country, Finland, to study.

“It was important for me to experience Finnishness and Finnish life as an adult as well. I chose Tampere because it felt like the right size and a student-friendly city,” Kilkki explains via Teams from Paris, where she works as a communications manager for a global company called Ayvens.

Kilkki found a place to study at TAMK’s International Business program, where she specialized in marketing and brand building. The program was taught in English, and the student body was international.

“It was great that there were people who had moved to Finland from abroad or Finns who had grown up abroad, just like me. I got to experience what it’s like to work with very different kinds of people.”

Kilkki praises her business studies at TAMK as practical and useful for her career. The studies weren’t just theory; they included a lot of group work and projects, which were often carried out in collaboration with companies. 

“Another important lesson was that it’s okay if you don’t immediately know what to do or how to do it. The most important thing is that you learn from your mistakes, stay persistent, and try again”, she sums up.

The exchange program in France was a life-changing experience

At TAMK, students were encouraged to go abroad as exchange students. Kilkki went on an Erasmus exchange to France, to the Bordeaux wine region. Kilkki chose France because she wanted to improve her French. There was also a childhood dream behind it: as early as age seven, she dreamed of one day living in Paris and working at Disneyland.

“Now my dream has come half true!”, she laughs.

After her exchange year, Kilkki stayed in Bordeaux, where she landed an internship in marketing communications at a local wine tourism company. After that, she wrote her thesis and graduated from TAMK with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 2019. The following year, Kilkki moved to Paris and began her master’s studies in marketing and international relations there. At the same time, she worked in digital and social media marketing.

Since December 2022, Kilkki has been working in her current role at Ayvens as a Communications Manager for an international car leasing company headquartered in Paris. Ayvens operates in 42 countries, including Finland.

“At Ayvens, I get to handle a wide range of internal and external corporate communications tasks. The scale is global, which is very interesting”.

In the future, Kilkki wants to continue working in international communications and branding, developing her expertise in increasingly strategic roles and keep learning new things. 

Grab the opportunity where you can

According to Lyydia Kilki, being Finnish has been nothing but an asset in her career.

“Finns have a good reputation abroad: we do our work conscientiously and deliver exactly what we promise. We have many positive qualities that we can and should be proud of.”

Kilkki encourages young people who dream of a career abroad to believe in themselves and say yes to opportunities. According to her, curiosity and courage will take you far abroad.

“It’s worth seizing opportunities, even if you feel you’re not quite ready. I guess no one is ever completely ready, but if you want a career abroad, you just have to be open-minded and go for it.”

Kilkki believes that studying at TAMK gave her excellent foundational knowledge and skills for her future career. However, education is only one half of the story behind success — the other half is personal grit and perseverance.

“I wasn’t even sure myself if it was possible for me to build a career abroad or in Paris. A lot depends on your own attitude, though: when you decide that this can happen to me, it really can,” she reflects.