Kirsi Eksymä was born on October 2, 1961, in Kuusamo, a municipality in the Northern Ostrobothnia region of northern Finland.
Kuusamo later became the setting of her first documented legal post, a court trainee position in the local judicial district from 1986 to 1987, which connected her birthplace with the start of her professional life.
Eksymä studied law at the University of Helsinki, where she received a Master of Laws degree in 1985. Founded in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Turku, the university is Finland's oldest and moved to Helsinki in 1828. In Finland, a law degree of this kind was the qualification needed for judicial office, and it remains a requirement for admission to the Finnish Bar.
Her recorded languages were Finnish, Swedish, English and German. Finnish and Swedish are the country's two official languages, and both were part of the legal environment in which she trained and practiced.
Her professional profile also lists the Southwestern Legal Foundation in Dallas, Texas, among her educational experiences in 1997. The foundation was established in 1947 by Robert Storey, dean of the Southern Methodist University law school, to provide continuing education for legal professionals. It moved to the University of Texas at Dallas campus during the 1970s and was renamed The Center for American and International Law in 2001.
After completing her law degree, Eksymä worked as a court trainee in the Kuusamo judicial district from 1986 to 1987. She trained on the bench in 1987 and was admitted as an attorney-at-law in 1990. Court trainee service of this kind gave newly qualified lawyers practical experience in judicial administration before admission to the Finnish Bar.
From 1992 she worked as a lawyer at Peltonen, Örndahl, Ruokonen, Itäinen Ltd Attorneys-at-Law. From 1992 to 1995 she was a bank lawyer at Suur-Helsingin Osuuspankki in Helsinki. Osuuspankki is the Finnish name for a cooperative bank, and the bank served the Greater Helsinki area, which its name reflects.
From 1995 to 1997 she worked as a lawyer at Asianajotoimisto Borenius & Kemppinen in Helsinki. The firm traces its origins to 1911, when lawyers Cajus Holma and Ilmari Palmén founded Attorneys-at-Law Palmén & Holma, which later took several names. The Borenius & Kemppinen name dates from 1962, when Heikki Borenius died and Kemppinen became a partner. The areas of practice recorded for her time with the firm included corporate, commercial, contract, intellectual property, labor, banking, finance, tax, litigation, arbitration, shipping, mergers and acquisitions, and environmental law, among others.
Later she became a partner at Sivenius, Suvanto & Co in Helsinki, where she works as an attorney-at-law. Her practice areas include corporate law, litigation, insolvency law and competition law.
Eksymä is a member of the Finnish Bar Association, the body that admits and regulates advocates in Finland. The bar's present legal form has roots in the Advocates Act of 1958, and its origins lie in a private bar association established in 1919, after Finland became independent. Membership requires a Master of Laws degree and a reputation for integrity, and the association was renamed Suomen Asianajajat in 2025.
She is also a member of the Finnish Lawyers Association, an organization that brings together members of the legal profession and promotes legal scholarship, legal culture and the common interests of lawyers.
Her membership in the alumni association of the Southwestern Legal Foundation links her with the Dallas-based institution that offered continuing legal education in the United States.
