Biography

Image via Wikipedia

Mari Kiviniemi served as the second female Prime Minister of Finland from 2010 to 2011. 

Kiviniemi was born in 1968 and went on to study economics from the University of Helsinki and holds a Master's degree in Social Sciences.

She ran in the general elections in 1995 the year after completing her Master's degree. Elected for the first time at the age of 26, she was a Member of Parliament from 1995 to 2014, chairing and participating in a vast number of committees. She also held a variety of leadership positions in her political party, the Finnish Center Party. Prior to taking office, she was Special Advisor on Economic Policy to the Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, Minister for European Affairs and Minister of Public Administration and Local Government. 

After serving as the Prime Minister she took up her duties as OECD Deputy Secretary-General in 2014. Her role consists of sharing her extensive experience to help increase the impact and relevance of OECD work and to contribute to the public policy challenges of promoting inclusive growth, jobs, equality and trust. She is responsible for the strategic oversight of the OECD’s work on Efficient and Effective Governance; Territorial Development; Trade and Agriculture, Statistics; for advancing the Better Life Initiative; as well as Entrepreneurship, SMEs’, Local development and Tourism.

​She served as OECD Deputy Secretary General from 2014 to 2018. Mari Kiviniemi served as Managing Director of the Finnish Commerce Federation from 2019 to 2024.