We sat down with senior lecturer William Simcoe and let him tell briefly about himself and how he ended up in Metropolia.

“I went to school in Harlem in the 1970s. After high school, when I was eighteen years old, I worked as a professional drummer for Broadway shows and musicals. I started to burn out because being a musician was quite a hard job. I applied to Columbia Business School to study Psychology because I was not enjoying music anymore. At that time Columbia was in the top three rankings but I was accepted and I got a degree in psychology. After that I studied organizational psychology at Columbia which included the impact of business on culture. For one summer I went to the Goethe Institute in Germany and went back there after graduating and there I met my wife. A whole group of Finns was studying there and so I came to visit Finland.

The language was no problem for me and I started working here. My first job was to design a training for a language firm which wanted to teach Asian culture. After this job, I was working as a consultant for other big companies. I had a project in which engineers and marketing people worked together. A woman noticed one of my lectures and asked me to come to her school where she was the manager. It was the oldest business school in Finland. I was travelling a lot and started burning out again and thought about moving back to the States. She needed a new marketing teacher for an international program. I finally decided to take the chance. The company I was consulting was placed in Myyrmäki and the business school was also there. I became the placement supervisor and gave lectures in business. The brand name of the old business school was thrown away when they changed its name for the first time. Later on, the school changed its name again. Now this school is known as Metropolia.”

Ann-Tara Voelskow, Photo by William Simcoe