Jan Pellervo Vapaavuori (born 3 April 1965) is a Finnish politician, the former Minister of Economic Affairs, and the former mayor of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. Vapaavuori was Minister of Housing and Minister of Nordic Cooperation in Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet and Mari Kiviniemi's cabinet. He was a candidate for the head of his party (the

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the right of the political spectrum, but are closer to the centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure and the economy, moving away from the nobility and ...

National Coalition Party sv, Samlingspartiet , leader1_title = Chairman , leader1_name = Petteri Orpo , leader2_title = Deputy chairs , leader2_name = Antti HäkkänenElina ValtonenAnna-Kaisa Ikonen , merger = Finnish Party, Young Finn ...

) in the June 2014 election, and as part of that the likeliest interim Prime Minister of Finland. However he eventually failed to make the eventual head-to-head round within the Coalition Party, which saw

Alexander Stubb Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb (born 1 April 1968) is a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2014 to 2015. He rose to politics as a researcher specialized in the affairs of the European Union and was elected to the European ...

defeat

Paula Risikko Paula Risikko (born 4 June 1960, Ylihärmä) is a Finnish politician. She is from Seinäjoki and represents the National Coalition Party. Risikko has previously served as the Minister of Social Services 2011–2014 and Minister of Transport and Lo ...

. Vapaavuori has been a

Helsinki City Council The City Council of Helsinki (, ) is the main decision-making organ in the local politics of Helsinki, Finland. The City Council deals with issues such as city planning, schools, health care, and public transport. The 85-seat Council's members a ...

member since 1997. He has been a member of the Parliament since 2003, from the constituency of Helsinki, and he represents the

. From 2011 to 2012 he was the chairman of the party's parliamentary group. Vapaavuori was elected

Mayor of Helsinki The City Council of Helsinki (, ) is the main decision-making organ in the local politics of Helsinki, Finland. The City Council deals with issues such as city planning, schools, health care, and public transport. The 85-seat Council's members a ...

in 2017. His term started on 1 June 2017. In November 2020 Vapaavuori announced that he will not be seeking re-election and plans to retire from politics. Vapaavuori acquired a law degree from

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the R ...

in 1989. He continued his studies in Helsinki,

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the ca ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

and

Hanken School of Economics Hanken School of Economics ( Swedish: ''Svenska handelshögskolan,'' also known as Hanken) is a business school in Finland with two locations, Helsinki and Vaasa. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest business school in Finland, and one of the oldest ...

as well. He has worked in the

National Union of University Students in Finland The National Union of University Students in Finland ( fi, Suomen ylioppilaskuntien liitto (SYL) ry, sv, Finlands studentkårers förbund (FSF) rf) is the largest national organisation providing benefits and services for students in Finland. Its ...

. Vapaavuori was born into a bilingual family: his father, Panu, is a Finnish jurist and mother, Gun, was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

teacher. He is married to Outi Laitinen-Vapaavuori, a doctor of veterinary medicine.

References

External links

Jan Vapaavuori website

Jan Vapaavuori profile
at Council of State website 1965 births Living people Politicians from Helsinki Finnish people of Swedish descent National Coalition Party politicians Ministers of Trade and Industry of Finland Members of the Parliament of Finland (2003–07) Members of the Parliament of Finland (2007–11) Members of the Parliament of Finland (2011–15) Mayors of Helsinki {{NationalCoalition-politician-stub