Helena Haapio is a Contract Strategist at Lexpert, Professor of Practice at University of Lapland and an Associate Professor of Business Law at University of Vaasa.

She is a pioneer of Proactive Law and Contract Design, a lawyer on a mission: a practitioner by day and a researcher, author, and editor by night. Her research focuses on merging proactive legal thinking with design: helping people and businesses use contracts and law proactively to achieve better business and societal results, balance risk with reward, and prevent unnecessary problems. She has devoted her life to improving contracts, especially for people who lack legal training: engineers, business and project managers, entrepreneurs who encounter contracts on a daily basis. Together with information designers and colleagues she has explored new contract genres and designs. She co-authored with Prof. George Siedel Proactive Law for Managers (Gower 2011) and recently co-edited two books for Edward Elgar, one on Legal Design and the other on Contract Design.

Proactive Law for Managers: https://www.routledge.com/Proactive-Law-for-Managers-A-Hidden-Source-of-Competitive-Advantage/Siedel-Haapio/p/book/9781409401001

Legal Design book: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/legal-design-9781839107252.html

Contract Design book: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/research-handbook-on-contract-design-9781839102271.html

Nikki is the Chief Development Officer for CCM Institute, where she is committed to advancing research that underpins responsible change. She is passionate about leveraging insights to influence policy and practice for the professional community.

With over two decades of global experience, Nikki has lived in seven countries, helping organizations develop strategies and curate shared learning experiences through research, events and multimedia campaigns.

Her work spans diverse industries in both public and private sector, including Financial Services, Energy, Transportation, Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals, and Healthcare.

Nikki thrives on building relationships and bringing people together to collaborate and innovate.

Anne Ketola (PhD) is a linguist who specializes in cognitive accessibility and plain language. Her recent research has focused on the accessibility of contract language and design methods that support the comprehension of contracts. Ketola is the Principal Investigator in the Contract Language research project, conducted by the JARGONFREE research group at Tampere University, Finland. The project examines how complex and vague language used in supply chain contracts obscures the contract parties’ sustainability commitments.