Terje Saarepuu named among the three most influential CFOs of 2024
At last week's Most Influential CFO competition, where Meliva board member and CFO Terje Saarepuu was one of the finalists, Terje received a colleagues' award based on the results of an online vote.
Terje Saarepuu was recognised by a jury made up of representatives from the Big Four audit firms and Äripäev for the successful merger of Meliva’s companies. Becoming Meliva AS in March, and going on to operate as a unified Meliva, marks a major step for us. Speaking about the merger process, Terje noted that the biggest challenge wasn’t even integrating financial processes — it was shifting people’s mindset, as two mid-sized companies, formerly Unimed and Qvalitas, suddenly became one large enterprise. As part of the legal merger, Meliva’s dental laboratories were also brought together under the shared Meliva AS.
Work on the substantive side of the merger has been ongoing actively for the past year — for example, bringing accounting systems together. The merger crossed the finish line in mid-March, when the entry was registered with the Business Register.
The merger has brought plenty of challenges at Meliva — from internal communication and getting teams moving in step, to shifting the mindset around now working within a much larger company. Naturally, the merger has also brought processes that needed to be rethought and reworked.
Operating under a unified Meliva AS is a logical step, since it allows us to offer Meliva patients more comprehensive, more convenient care solutions, rather than focusing narrowly on a single area, such as dental care alone.
In terms of goals, Meliva’s main financial objective is ensuring profitable growth. Key to that is both hiring specialist doctors and expanding existing areas of expertise.
