Lauri Ojala

Professor of Logistics, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku

Mr. Lauri Ojala, Professor of Logistics at University of Turku, Finland, since 1997. His expertise includes international logistics and maritime economics also from a policy-making perspective, incl. security of supply issues. Worked as an expert for e.g. The World Bank, EC and several other international organizations and Ministries of Transport. 

M.Sc. in 1986 in Shipping Economics, Åbo Akademi University, Finland (ÅAU) and doctorated in Logistics in 1995 at Turku School of Economics, Finland. In 2024, received a vocational certificate as a Skipper in domestic trades for cargo vessels up to 500 GT.

Appointments as a Coast Guard officer in the Finnish Border Guard; assignments in shipping companies and agencies, and as a purser on a cruise ship. Lecturer in shipping economics for Master Mariner classes at Swedish Nautical College in Turku in 1983-1994 and 2010-2018. Member of the Board in i) state-owned ice-breaking enterprise Finstaship in 2005-2008; and ii) state-owned road ferry operator FinFerries from 2010 till 2016. 

(Co)supervised >200 M.Sc. and over 20 Master Mariner theses and over 20 completed PhD’s. Examiner or opponent of over 30 Doctoral dissertations and evaluator in over 20 professorial nominations in several countries. 

Since 2006, Project Director of several EU part-funded projects with a combined volume ~20 M€, mostly related to ports and shipping. (Co-)authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles and over other reports in logistics/SCM, shipping, port and transport economics. Initiator and co-author of World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, a worldwide indicator on how easy or difficult countries’ trade logistics is perveived.