The CEO of the personnel database firm Sarastia, Mika Kantola, has agreed with the company's board to leave his post as of Friday, the company has revealed on its website.
The company's name started appearing in news stories due to eventually months-long problems with the rollout of an updated personnel database and payroll system it provided the cities of Helsinki and Vantaa in the spring of last year.
For a period of months, some of the cities' workers reported being underpaid, overpaid and even not being paid at all over the course of several salary cycles.
Yle reported in November of last year that rectifying the salary payment issues cost the City of Helsinki around four million euros by that point.
Kantola worked at the firm for more than 15 years, the company said. Sarastia's board chair, Kai-Petteri Purhonen, thanked Kantola for his "considerable contribution to in-house financial and human resource management services."
"Sarasti and its customer base made up of public entities have gone through a time of great change, in which Mika's role was central. The time is good for a new person to take the lead," Purhonen's statement read.
Kantola will be temporarily replaced by its CFO, Anette Vaini-Anttila, as interim CEO while the company seeks a new chief executive.
Edit note added on 8.2.2023 at 13:07 to note that Mika Kantola's departure from Sarastia was detailed on the company's website, not via a press release.