Terrafame Oy is a Finnish mining and chemical company producing battery chemicals for the growing electric mobility market. Founded in 2015, the company operates one of the world’s largest battery chemicals production lines in Sotkamo, with capacity to produce nickel sulphate for approximately one million electric vehicles annually.
In spring 2025, Terrafame decided to strengthen its procurement capability and ensure continuity in strategic sourcing. The solution was to utilise Recruitment as a Service to hire three experienced Category Managers.
The Need to Strengthen Procurement with Internal Capability
According to Chief Procurement Officer Mika Lahti, Terrafame is executing a programme to improve cash flow and profitability in a challenging market environment.
Despite growing demand for electric vehicles, the global market price of nickel has declined, putting pressure on financial performance. Procurement plays a central role in addressing this by driving sourcing activities, renegotiating contracts, and improving processes.
"Procurement has had a significant role in our company’s development programme. We have competitively sourced key categories, renegotiated contracts, and developed our operating models together with external consultants."
Lahti himself took up his role as Chief Procurement Officer at Terrafame at the beginning of March 2025, and even then, it was clear that the company's procurement function would be strengthened and its in-house resources expanded. In the spring, the decision was made to recruit three Category Managers to support strategic sourcing.
"We recognised early on that external support would be required to identify the right candidates. ValueSource stood out with its strong procurement network and clear understanding of the roles."
A Recruitment Process Built on Procurement Expertise
The recruitment process started in late April with a clear objective: complete the selection before Finnish mid-summer.
"The collaboration was efficient and straightforward. Communication worked seamlessly, and the entire process was completed in approximately five weeks, which is fast for this level of recruitment."
According to Lahti, it was a significant advantage for Terrafame that ValueSource knows the procurement talent landscape broadly, along with the roles and tasks for which professionals are recruited. The process was made considerably easier when there was shared understanding from the beginning and nothing needed to be spelled out from the scratch.
"ValueSource was also able to assess on its own who would fit best with Terrafame's environment and culture. All the candidates were relevant to us. There were so many high-calibre candidates that we had to set several suitable ones aside."
Immediate Impact from Day One
The three new Category Managers started at Terrafame at the beginning of August. The experiences so far have been very positive: the experts have hit the ground running and taken responsibility for key procurement categories.
"Usually, it takes months before new employees really get up to speed, but here the results have shown up immediately. On top of that, the experts have brought with them new development ideas and improvements to our processes," Lahti says.
Both Terrafame's own organisation and its suppliers have already given spontaneous positive feedback on how the new Category Managers are performing.
Building Procurement Capability for the Long Term
From Terrafame’s perspective, ValueSource’s strength lies in its deep understanding of procurement roles and professionals.
"We now have clear ownership within procurement and strong professionals leading key areas. Internal business stakeholders know who to approach, and supplier collaboration is more structured."
"I can recommend ValueSource Partners as a procurement recruitment partner. Processes like these always carry the risk of going wrong, but ValueSource knows the different areas of procurement and the professionals working in them, which is why they were able to find and put forward the right people for our roles."
A Candidate Perspective
One of the recruited professionals, Heidi Heino, highlights the clarity and transparency of the process. For Heino, the recruitment was also special because it fulfilled a long-held dream of moving from Rauma to her mother's home region in Kainuu.
" The recruitment process created a sense of trust from the start. I got truthful information about the company and the role, and I felt that I was genuinely being listened to as well. The whole process was handled in an encouraging and warm, person-to-person way, which gave me the courage to share my hopes of moving early on too."
Heino also says the work has started well at Terrafame. The three new Category Managers starting at the same time made onboarding easier and created a good team spirit right away.
"I have an absolutely top team, and I've been welcomed really well overall. It was wonderful to be able to move to Kainuu and find a brilliant team and manager to work with on top of that. I'm coming up on three months now, and I'm still genuinely buzzing about it."