Running a virtual AGM for a handful of shareholders is one thing. Running one for a company with nearly 600,000 shareholders spread across several countries, in three languages, with full legal compliance and real-time interactivity — that’s a different challenge entirely.
In March 2026, we got to do exactly that. Nordea — the largest financial services group in the Nordics — became the first major Finnish company to hold its Annual General Meeting fully online, with the Videosync live event platform at the core. The event was produced by Flik (part of Inderes Group) from a professional studio in Helsinki.
Here’s what it took to make it happen.
It starts with why
A virtual AGM of this scale isn’t a cost-cutting exercise. For Nordea, the motivation was about inclusion: with a shareholder base spanning Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and beyond, a traditional in-person meeting in Helsinki inevitably left most owners on the sidelines. A virtual format gives every shareholder equal access to the company’s decision-making, regardless of where they are.
“The motives were specifically about treating all shareholders equally and enabling them to participate without physical barriers. Plus there’s the sustainability angle — shareholders across four Nordic countries no longer need to travel just to attend an AGM.”
— Heikki Aitola, Producer and Account Manager at Flik
This matters when you’re designing the solution. Every technical decision — from authentication to language support to real-time interaction — needs to serve that goal of genuine, barrier-free participation.
Virtual for shareholders, full-scale production on site
One misconception about virtual events is that they’re simpler to produce. In reality, a virtual AGM at this level is comparable in physical scale to a traditional one — the difference is that the audience isn’t in the room.
Around 100 people were on site at the studio: the board of directors, the CEO, legal teams, investor relations, communications, brand and marketing staff, professional interpreters, security personnel, and the full production crew.
“The sheer number of stakeholders involved made this a uniquely demanding project. Communications wanted things done a certain way. Brand and marketing needed the event to look like what you’d expect from the largest bank in the Nordics. Legal needed the content to be exactly right, while IR wanted the best possible experience for the shareholders. The bar was set very high.”
— Heikki Aitola
What the platform needs to handle
A virtual AGM isn’t a webinar. It’s a legally binding meeting where shareholders exercise their rights — and the platform has to support every part of that process.
In this case, Videosync handled the complete participant experience: the branded event page, the agenda and supporting documents, authenticated access for registered shareholders, the live video stream with selectable language channels, real-time voting, and — crucially — the ability for shareholders to request speaking rights and address the meeting live.
Antti Kurkinen, Development Team Lead at Videosync, led the platform side of the project.
“When a vote happens, it has to work instantly. Same with speaking rights. A shareholder raises their hand, the chair grants them the floor, and they speak — all in real time, with no delay. That’s non-negotiable.”
— Antti Kurkinen, Development Team Lead at Videosync
The chair also had dedicated views showing the same interface shareholders were seeing, along with full visibility on the speaker queue and meeting controls. This real-time situational awareness is essential — the chair needs to know exactly what participants are experiencing at every moment.
Real-time, not near-time
One of the most critical technical requirements was true real-time delivery. In many virtual event platforms, there’s a 15–20 second delay between the studio and what viewers see. For a webinar, that’s acceptable. For a legally binding meeting with live voting and interactive speaking rights, it’s not.
With Videosync’s real-time streaming, everything is synchronous. If a vote is opened, every shareholder sees it at the same moment. When the chair grants a speaking turn, it happens without perceptible delay. This is fundamental to maintaining the integrity of the meeting — and to making the virtual experience feel as immediate as being in the room.
Three languages, four audio channels, one stream
The meeting’s official language was Swedish, but it also needed to run in Finnish and English — a trilingual meeting with simultaneous interpretation. Professional interpreters worked from the studio, and the platform delivered the experience as a single real-time video stream with four selectable audio channels: Finnish, Swedish, English, and the original audio.
“Combining real-time streaming with multilingual interpretation was probably the single most challenging part. It sounds simple — you pick a language and you hear it. But when a shareholder on any language channel can also request the floor and speak, and their voice needs to be routed to the right place while they simultaneously receive interpretation back… that’s where it gets really complex.”
— Antti Kurkinen
Shareholders could ask questions in Finnish, Swedish, or English — and the interpreters translated everything across all channels in real time. This kind of multi-directional, real-time interpreted interaction isn’t something you’ll find on any other event platform.
Designed for zero downtime
When a meeting carries legal weight, technical failure isn’t just embarrassing — it can invalidate the proceedings. The team invested heavily in risk mitigation, mapping out scenarios from individual connectivity issues all the way to worst-case events like a fire alarm in the studio.
The entire production chain was fully redundant: microphones, audio desks, encoders — everything was doubled. On the viewer side, a fully functional backup stream with all interpretation channels ran in parallel, ready to take over seamlessly. Dedicated customer support was integrated directly into the platform, available via chat to help shareholders with technical issues in real time.
“We defined clear protocols for communicating with the chair if anything went wrong. If we identified a problem that would take three minutes to resolve, we had a process to inform the chair so they could pause the meeting. Thankfully, everything ran smoothly. But when you’re dealing with this many moving parts, you have to be prepared for anything.”
— Heikki Aitola
The result
The meeting ran without technical issues. All stakeholders — from Nordea’s board and legal team to the production crew — were highly satisfied.
“Everyone understood the significance of what was achieved. We developed new processes, built new solutions, and learned a lot along the way. It’s an excellent foundation for the future.”
— Heikki Aitola
For us at Videosync, this project was a milestone. We’ve been building virtual AGM capabilities since the pandemic era, but this was the first true test at the highest level: one of the largest companies in the Nordics, hundreds of thousands of shareholders, four language channels, and the full weight of regulatory and legal requirements.
“Videosync is really the only platform that brings all of these elements together. The multilingual support, the real-time interactivity, the redundancy, the shareholder authentication — I wouldn’t produce a virtual AGM on just any platform.”
— Heikki Aitola
If you’re exploring virtual or hybrid options for your next AGM or large-scale shareholder event, we’d love to talk. Get in touch with our team to learn how Videosync can help.