How do you create continuous value, even when teams, tools, and business needs evolve over time?
This question has followed Neste’s data team through five years of transformation. What began as a proof-of-concept to fix business challenges via analytics has grown into a long-term partnership and a global data platform built to support the world’s leading renewable fuel companies, world's largest producer of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
At the heart of this story is a collaboration that blurred the lines between client and consultant; a team where everyone is treated as an equal, where feedback flows freely, and where humor helps people get through even the toughest sprints.
Building trust from day one
When Neste’s Head of Data Management, Janne Nikkola, first started assembling the data platform team, he knew that trust would be the foundation. Many of the external consultants he brought in were familiar faces he knew he could rely on.
“From the beginning, we were clear that it doesn’t matter who pays your salary. If we don’t work as one team, we don’t work at all,” Janne recalls. “That mindset set the tone for everything that followed.”
Neste’s internal data architecture team would define architecture, frameworks, direction and governance, while external experts would bring the data engineering capabilities needed to build and scale. Among those experts was Mika Heino, Data Architect and Partner at Recordly, who became a trusted partner from the start.
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“At first, my main contribution was Snowflake expertise,” Mika explains. “But over time, Neste built their own experts, and that’s something I’m genuinely happy about. My role evolved into bringing in fresh technological insights from Recordly.”
A way of working that sticks
Building the right technology was only half the challenge. The other half was creating a way of working that would stand the test of time. For a multi-vendor environment like Neste’s, that meant discipline, shared practices, and transparency.
“It’s all about gentle discipline,” Janne explains. “Everyone needs to follow the agreed practices and we can’t have competition between vendors.”
The team operates in eight-week product increments, followed by a ceremony week where project leads and architects come together to review progress, share learnings, and surface dependencies to ensure alignment across teams. Many participants are external consultants, but everyone has an equal voice.
“The ways of working at Neste were already excellent when we joined,” Mika notes. “Our cooperation brought fresh ideas, as you’d expect from consultants. The foundation for agility and creating value from data was already there.”
To make sure knowledge stays within the organization, Neste built a robust documentation and review process. Every development step goes through multi-angle review, which is not only for technical quality but also for business understanding. The result is a living internal wiki, constantly being reviewed and updated. New developers, whether internal or external, can query it using a GenAI assistant to learn how things were built and why.
“This has been a game changer,” says Janne. “We can onboard new people fast, and we don’t lose context when teams change or people rotate.”
Why long-term partnerships matter
For Neste, long-term collaboration is a necessity. Continuity allows the team to retain context, improve efficiency, and maintain quality over time.
“If we rotated partners every few months, it would all become fragmented,” Janne says. “This way, we have people who understand not only the tech but also our business, the soul of our company.”
That stability also helps with resource allocation. Because the core team has worked together for years, leaders can quickly place the right experts in the right domain without lengthy onboardings.
“It’s like a marriage,” Mika says. “A long-term partnership is the only way to really understand your client. You see the good, the bad, and the ugly. You learn when to suggest something, and when not to, because you already know what’s possible. You know who knows what, and that makes you a much better consultant.”
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