At some point over the past ten years, many of us have either played, or in the very least heard of Angry Birds, the video game inspired by a sketch of stylized wingless birds designed for smartphones.

The game revolves around players using a slingshot to launch the flightless birds at green pigs stationed in or around various structures with the aim to destroy all the pigs and move to the next level. It is highly addictive, and great fun.

The game, which has sold over 12 million copies worldwide, was developed by Rovio Entertainment in 2009, and has proved so successful that licensed amusement parks have sprung up around the world.

And part of Rovio’s success story is thanks to Jukka Koivu, the now CEO of Kytäjä Golf in Finland who spent four years helping to build the Finnish brand around the world.

With a 25-year background working in the financial sector, Koivu was approached by Rovio, and the move from finance to leisure has had a bigger impact on Koivu than first anticipated.

“It all started about roughly ten years ago, because I was asked to join Rovio Entertainment, which is the home of Angry Birds. After spending 25 years in the finance business, I moved to Rovio – which was a start-up business – and it became the hottest brand in the world,” said Koivu.

Koivu had worked with the owner of Rovio previously on some projects and had helped with the financing of the project before accepting the invitation to jump on-board.

“It was the biggest change you can make, from the very old-fashioned banking business to a start-up doing mobile games. And that kind of opened my eyes, that the world can be really something different.

“I learned a lot. I didn’t know anything about the entertainment business, and I travelled a lot. I calculated that I travelled, during the four years I was with Rovio to something like 40 different countries, all continents, and I learned a lot. And that was really a fascinating journey.”

Heading up the location-based entertainment division for Rovio, Koivu helped license and create Angry Birds World in Doha before concluding that the travel was becoming too much. He was then head-hunted to work for a family-run business named Hanatukku, which sells food to restaurants.

“I was hired because they understood… the owners, they understood that they needed to make a change as they were doing [business] in a very old-fashioned way.

“I tried to change the whole company, and I was there about four years, before the owners decided that they wanted to sell the company to one of the biggest multi-retailers in Finland.

“I had no plans to join them, and then the head-hunter that recruited me to Hanatukku called me and asked: ‘Hey, how about running a golf course?’

“I replied: ‘Why the hell are you calling me? I play golf, but I have absolutely no interest to work at a golf club,’ and yet a month later I signed the deal to become CEO at Kytäjä Golf,” he laughs. “I actually used to play golf here when I started playing and played here for about ten years, so I know the place.

“The previous CEO wasn’t very capable, and the owners wanted to have a change because the man who built this spent €20 million and they wanted to make sure the course shined again.”

Prior to being recruited, Koivu didn’t know his new employers and at his interview, he was asked what needed to improve for the destination to achieve its goals and ambitions. Still a member at the time, Koivu was objective and looked at the club from the perspective of a manager, rather than that of a member.

And it didn’t take Koivu long to start making his mark and start the process of restoring the club to its former glory. Located only 45 minutes from Helsinki Airport, Kytäjä features two courses – South East and North West – both designed by Canadian golf course architect Thomas McBroom.

Opened in 2003 and 2004 respectively, by the time Koivu began his tenure as CEO in July 2019, the club had fallen on tough times.

“In a way I knew what was wrong here,” he recalls. “For example, the course manager. I fired him when I was here. I had been here for three months, and I needed to fire him and find a new one because the course was really in bad condition, and everyone was saying that the greens were crappy.

“For the first ten years, this was the place, the number one in Finland. Everybody said that. And the greens were really good and really fast. And then they went downhill.”

Koivu set about recruiting a new course manager and a consultant to rectify the problems with the greens on the South East course and ended-up investing €350,000 importing new turf from Spain which has vastly improved the course condition and playability.

The new greens are part of a masterplan conceived by Koivu for the restoration of the South East course as the number one course in Finland, and includes replacing over time, all the bunkers.

“The plan is to remove about 30 per cent of the bunkers as we have hundreds of bunkers on each course which is quite a lot. There are several bunkers that no one has ever been in with a ball.”

The work will be undertaken in association with Mikko Ilonen – the Finnish golfer who won five times on the European Tour – and who now has his own design practice.

“Ilonen Design will be helping our course manager with the changes, but it is our course manager who is the key person here, and who will be making the final call on the changes.”

With a limited playing season in Finland – although in the summer months it is possible to play until midnight – Koivu is aware that he needs to add value to the offering at Kytäjä, as he vows to attract more overseas golfers.

“Based on the experience I have, I would say that mainly Germany [is our core market], but also Austria, Switzerland, and then some parts of Scandinavia.

“Scandinavia is a bit difficult, because people in Scandinavia, when they go somewhere, they travel to Portugal and Spain in the winter, and then in the summer, because this is nice place to be, they don’t travel.”

And part of the grand masterplan for the destination is the opening of a hotel next to the clubhouse which will further enhance the nine villas that are dotted along the 18th fairway on the South East course.

But as Koivu explains, the profile of not only Kytäjä but golf in Finland in general needs to be improved, in order to attract more golfers from outside Scandinavia.

“The challenge is that nobody knows Finland. Nobody knows that you can play golf in Finland. When people hear about Finland and they have some friends that have been here, they say it has been great experience.

“But to start with, we really need, I think, the tour operators to help.”

Reflecting on his short tenure, the 61-year-old admits that a lot more needs to happen in order to elevate Kytäjä to where it needs to be in Koivu’s opinion.

“A lot needs to be changed. A lot. And I set the goal that by 2025, we should be one of the best golf resorts in Northern Europe and on the same level as The Scandinavian in Denmark, “he said.

“We will probably not get there because I know how good they are, but anyway, I want to challenge myself, and the organisation.

“I think our personnel is starting to believe that we can really get there, but we have a long way to go.”