Risto Erkki Juhani Penttilä is a policy expert, former member of the Finnish parliament, Director of the Finnish Business and Policy Forum and Secretary General of European Business Leaders’ Convention.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy (International Relations), University College, Oxford University 1989
Master of Philosophy, University College, Oxford University 1986
Bachelor of Arts, Saybrook College, Yale University 1984
Penttilä was the first Finn to receive Bachelor"s degree from Yale. In Oxford, he lived in the same room as Bill Clinton before him and Chelsea Clinton after him.
Career
In the 2009 European Parliament election, Penttilä was one of the most popular candidates in Finland. His result 50,858 was short by a margin of several hundred votes and gave him the first deputy candidacy. Penttilä has worked for McKinsey, the World Economic Forum and Oxford Analytica.
He has been a columnist in the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and Taloussanomat.
In Yale, Penttilä was selected to the Ivy league football team He was elected to the parliament in the 1995 elections.
The party failed in the 1999 elections and was discontinued. In the 2009 European Parliament election, he was a National Coalition Party candidate.
He was one of the most popular candidates, receiving 50,858 votes and the first deputy seat.
Penttilä has proposed English as an official "auxiliary language" in Finland. He has said: "A separate statute would specify for those foreigners who are living here - and those foreigners and companies who are moving to Finland - such areas, for instance of public administration, services, and taxation, in which documentation would also be printed and made available in English". Penttilä has encouraged open discussion about pension reform in Finland.
Penttilä has argued that Finland should join North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Politics
In 1994, he and several other people founded the Nuorsuomalaiset, a reform-oriented liberal political party. Penttilä was endorsed by people such as former socialist leader Suvi-Anne Siimes, business leader Björn Wahlroos, ice-hockey coach Juhani Tamminen, and Finnish design leader Lenita Airisto.
Views
Quotations:
"A separate statute would specify for those foreigners who are living here - and those foreigners and companies who are moving to Finland - such areas, for instance of public administration, services, and taxation, in which documentation would also be printed and made available in English".