Name: Sanna Korhonen
Job title/position and company's name: Process engineer, metal pretreatment and ecoating, Tesla
Education: Formulation engineer, ITECH Lyon with a scholarship from Väriteollisuusyhdistys Bachelor of Chemistry, University of Helsinki

1

What was your dream job as a child? What led you to your school of choice?

I wanted to study biotechnology after finishing high school. I applied a couple of times but never got in. Instead, I started studying chemistry as a back up solution and ended up finding it really interesting after a while. I started specializing in polymer chemistry and then one day the opportunity to go to France just popped up in my emails and I decided to apply. It was not at all planned and it seemed very spontaneous, but looking back, it seems things worked out the way they were meant to.
2

What does your company do/manufacture? What kind of innovations is your company working on?

Tesla is best known for electric vehicles but we also produce solar panel roofs and batteries. The products create a full circle of solar energy production, storage and application.
3

What are you most excited about at your job?

We are really pushing boundaries. Every single day we challenge what is considered "standard" in the automotive industry and see if there is something we can do better. It is also a huge learning experience personally, that's what I enjoy the most.

Sanna´s career on a timeline

My favorite subjects in high school were biology, maths and languages (2009-2013)
First (summer) jobs: a mentor in a confirmation camp, ticket sales at my music academy concerts, sales at a kiosk (2009-2013)
I spent one year during high school in Ecuador as an exchange student (2011/2012)
During my studies I spent two full winters and a whole summer in the alps, skiing and hiking as a travel guide (periods of 3 months between 2014 and 2018)
2018 I starter studies in the French engineering school ITECH. The first semester was an exchange semester in Croatia and the 2 following semesters I spent in Lyon, in France.
I decided to go to Hamburg for my final 6-month-intership to work for a German pain company, Mankiewicz before graduating as a formulation engineer (2020)
November 2020, I started as an Associate Process Engineer at Tesla, Gigafactory Berlin.
October 2021, first promotion to Process engineer at Tesla