About us
Inspiration and innovation, success and opportunity.
We believe that doing good things opens up good opportunities. Every employee of the company has equal freedom to carry out their own responsibilities in the way they see fit. The railway industry will only step up to the future by being creative, and creativity needs time and space.
Story
Dare to think big
Better a day as a lion than the rest of one’s life as a sheep. When Petri Puikkonen from Pieksämäki founded Proxion and prepared the first tender papers with his two employees in a sheet metal hall in Haukivuori in 2005, it was clear to him that the company had to do things that were important in Finnish rail traffic. In the beginning, Puikkonen’s ideas and turnover plans of 10 million euros were laughed at. Just over ten years later, Proxion’s turnover reached more than 10 million for the first time, it had more than 100 employees and it was the first private operator on the Finnish railways. Today, more than 15 years after its establishment, Proxion is involved in all nationally significant railway projects, provides all the services needed in the railway sector, and is also growing internationally. The starting point for a success story is the founder’s belief in thinking big.
Puikkonen, who was born in Pieksämäki and studied to become an electrical power engineer, lost his heart to the railway industry on the first day of work. It was the end of the 1990s and Finnish railway projects had opened up to private operators a few years earlier. Puikkonen got a job as a construction consultant for railway projects. He became interested in the industry, got to know its various actors and saw the possibilities for the future. The experience of entrepreneurship in other sectors encouraged him to go his own way in the railway sector as well.
From the beginning, Proxion’s operations have been guided by the idea of responsibility and freedom. Proxion wants to play its part in improving the competitiveness of the industry and making it easier for people to move around. As the founder and owner of Proxion, Petri Puikkonen believes that doing good things opens up good opportunities.
Throughout Proxion’s history, it has been equally important that every employee in the company has equal freedom to take care of their own responsibilities in the way they see fit. The railway industry will only step up to the future by being creative, and creativity will suffer with chains.
Operating culture
Every idea is important
Proxion is an innovative and fast-moving company that wants to shake things up and change the traditional, currently digitalizing rail industry. The company aims to be simply the best in its field. For this goal to succeed, the best people in the industry are needed for the job. Proxion is confident that the best knowhow in the Finnish rail industry can be found right here and more will come and develop all the time!
Proxion employs skilled and ambitious experts in various fields. Many of them are young. Employees thrive because structures belonging to the past world that no longer serve in the 2020s have been dismantled from the work culture. Everyone gets to influence the details of their work day themselves, outsiders don’t notice who is a supervisor and who isn’t, and everyone is listened to. Proxion wants people to stand out with their ideas and skills, not because of their titles.
For the customer, the operating culture at Proxion manifests as better quality of work and innovative ideas. When there is freedom to be creative and the best talents are allowed to step up, new insights and great impressions emerge.
When duty calls, we react. When bunk calls, we relax.
Petri Puikkonen, Main owner and founder
The future
Internationalization creates new opportunities
The debt-free and wealthy Proxion, with a turnover of approximately EUR 15 million in 2021, is growing rapidly. In the 2020s, the company plans to continue active recruitment and expand internationally. The goal is to be the best expert in the railway industry in Finland and a major player in Europe.
At the beginning of 2021, Proxion opened an office in Tallinn, Estonia. The Baltic market is important and interesting, as the investments and reforms of the century are being made in rail transport. Proxion’s goal is to build an expert organization in Estonia that will enable the company to participate in Pan-European rail transport projects, such as the design of Rail Baltica from Tallinn to Warsaw, Poland. Proxion aims to expand its operations to Sweden and Central Europe as well.
International operations also create good, different career opportunities for Proxion’s Finnish employees. Recruitment to Tallinn continues.
