Kari Kakkonen

Effective testing leadership is key to delivering high-quality products, yet many organisations struggle with common challenges: misunderstood testers, testing not valued, insufficient resources, and ineffective practices. This talk empowers you to drive meaningful change within your organisation.

Drawing from a combined six decades of leadership, mentoring, and testing experience — and distilled from the book ACT 2 LEAD: Software Testing Leadership Handbook — the session covers eight actionable principles. These include integrating testing into all development activities, choosing the right testing based on context, creating visibility for quality practices and results, and balancing automation with human-driven exploration. The talk also addresses continuous learning, fostering a culture of quality, aligning testing with product risks, and implementing diverse testing approaches.

Testing leadership empowers everyone involved, improves product quality, reduces production defects, and accelerates delivery — without compromising on quality.

Mr. Kari Kakkonen has worked in software testing for 30 years and is the ICT Influencer of the Year 2025 in Finland. He co-authored 'ACT 2 LEAD Software Testing Leadership Handbook'. Kari is the 2021 EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award winner. He is the CEO of Dragons Out Oy; created a fantasy book to teach software testing to children. Kari works at Gofore as the Service Owner of Customer Expertise Development, running a training business that provides software testing, agile, DevOps, and AI training services across Europe. Kari has volunteered in key roles at ISTQB, TMMi, and FiSTB. Kari is a seasoned speaker and passionate advocate for quality engineering and software testing.