Master of Art and Design Anna-Kaisa Huttunen has been appointed to the position of Director, Business Development at Metsä Spring as of 11 June. Her duties include leading the work to form business and market entry plans for Metsä Group’s Kuura textile fibre opportunity.
Huttunen has extensive experience in the textile industry. She graduated as a fashion designer in the 1990s from the University of Art and Design, now Aalto University. Her career began with victories in design competitions and working in Paris in the service of the French company Lacoste. Over the years, she has worked not only in France, but also in Austria, the Middle East and China with fashion, workwear, technical textiles and wearable technology. She has led design teams and worked in teaching positions.
In 2007, Huttunen returned to Finland and has since worked in the development and management of international business, first in the textile rental business and since 2022 at a company specialising in textile fibre recycling.
“The entire global value chain of textile production, from fibre to clothing and back to fibre through recycling, has become familiar to me during my career. It’s great to get to be a part of the Kuura story,” Huttunen says.
She says that the textile industry has changed over the years in an increasingly unethical direction: There is a need to produce as much as possible and as cheaply as possible. On the other hand, the huge industry is also very interesting – it employs more than a million people in the EU and more than 60 million in Asia, and its global market value is estimated by many to be more than one and a half trillion euros (source: Statista). At the same time, it is facing a major change due to its climate impact.
Huttunen has been following the development of the Kuura textile fibre for a long time and sees significant potential in it: “Kuura is a very promising innovation in the global market. Its strengths include product quality, production energy efficiency and strong environmental values. The fashion and textile industry has given me a lot, and it is motivating to get to commercialise a solution that genuinely benefits the industry,” she says.
