Anna Haverinen is Lead AI Designer at Gofore, a Nordic technology consultancy, where she works on AI adoption strategy, ethical AI design, and organisational change. She also runs Havainna Consulting, her independent practice offering executive coaching, team development, keynotes and trainings on various topics. Anna co-hosts the Finnish podcast Johtajatabut (Leadership Taboos) about taboos in team development, leadership and the complexities of decision-making.
Anna holds a PhD in Digital Culture from the University of Turku (2014). Her doctoral dissertation Memoria Virtualis examined death and mourning practices in digital spaces during 2007-20214, making her a pioneer in Nordic digital death studies. During her academic years she was a visiting scholar at University College London and Stockholm University, and has published widely on the digitalisation of death rituals and online violence. She has since helped build the foundation for Finnish design anthropologists working outside academia – bringing qualitative and cultural customer insight into commercial design practice at a time when the field barely existed in Finland.
Over her career Anna has worked at award-winning Finnish agencies including Palmu, Reaktor, Taiste, and Gofore, across public and private sectors, B2C and B2B. In recent years her focus has shifted to strategic design and management consulting in the age of AI. She will talk about what anthropology and qualitative research looks like when algorithmic systems reshape how organisations know what they know.