Meet The Team — Joel Kettunen, Head of Strategy

3 min readSep 27, 2021

Our “Meet The Team” series is back! This time we’re featuring Joel Kettunen, Head of Strategy at LocalBitcoins. Joel’s role is very unique as he facilitates the company’s strategy and works between different teams.

What does this mean in detail? What else does the Head of Strategy do and what does Joel love the most about his job? Well, read on to find out!

First, tell us a little about yourself. How did your journey lead you to LocalBitcoins?

Before LocalBitcoins I worked at a crowdfunding / financial services company helping startups and SMEs to raise capital. What I found most interesting about the role was being involved with innovative companies and people building new technologies and creating new services. This was a great motivational factor for my work. And even as a non-technical person, working with new emerging tech is very intriguing.

So, when I stumbled upon the role at LocalBitcoins I was immediately intrigued. Talking with different people during the interview process only strengthened my view.

What is your role in your current team?

As Head of Strategy, my role is quite unique in that I don’t really have just one team to work with on a day-to-day basis. I work quite cross-organizationally with participants from different teams.

A large part of my work goes into facilitating strategy work and helping the management and the board to make strategic decisions as well as leading some key strategic projects. Another area of focus for me is maintaining strategic documentation and reporting.

How did you hear about Bitcoin for the first time and what does Bitcoin mean to you?

I think the very first time I heard about Bitcoin was back in early 2013 when a friend suggested we set up our computers to mine bitcoin to get some “free money”. I remember being intrigued by the idea but decided not to pursue it at the time. I was re-introduced to the topic a couple of years ago and started doing some research into Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

For me Bitcoin means global financial inclusion, innovation and freedom to transact peer-to-peer.

What do you love most about your job?

Impossible for me to just say one thing so I’ll instead name three things that I appreciate very much. Number one is the people. We have a very diverse team of professionals that are fun to work with and are always eager to help.

Second is that my role is super interesting and that no two days seem to be the same. There’s a wide variety of things to be done and this is super motivating. Third is the industry, which is constantly evolving and challenges you to read up more and more to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments.

Why do people need Bitcoin? What do you think is the most important quality of Bitcoin?

Because Bitcoin enables global financial inclusion. It gives access to a new kind of cross-border financial infrastructure in countries where the common people might have poor access to legacy financial solutions.

For me the most important qualities in Bitcoin are that it comes from outside the realm of current financial infrastructure, its predictable monetary policy and the security of the network.