New ambassadors to Finland’s Mission to NATO and to Romania and new non-resident ambassador to Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire

The President of the Republic appointed Director General Piritta Asunmaa to serve as Permanent Representative of Finland to NATO, starting on 1 September 2023. Asunmaa currently serves as Director General for Political Affairs at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She has also served as Director General of the Department for the Americas and Asia from 2019 to 2021.

Ambassador Asunmaa has previously served as Head of Mission to NATO in Brussels from 2015 to 2019. She worked in Brussels also from 2011 to 2015, when she served as Finland’s Representative to the EU’s Political and Security Committee. From 2009 to 2011, before transferring to Brussels, she worked as Deputy Director General of the Department for Communication and Culture in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Her career in the Diplomatic Service includes posts in Washington DC and Paris and, another period at the Mission of Finland to NATO in Brussels.

Asunmaa joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1992.

The President of the Republic appointed Counsellor for Foreign Affairs Leena Liukkonen to serve as Head of Mission at Finland’s Embassy in Bucharest, starting on 1 September 2023. Liukkonen will move to Romania from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where she has worked as Deputy Director General of the Consular Services since 2019.

Liukkonen served as Head of the Visa Unit from 2016 to 2019. Previously, Liukkonen worked at the Ministry as team leader for Central and Western Europe and in human resources management among others. Her career in the Diplomatic Service includes posts in Finland’s embassies in Moscow, Rome and Budapest and in Finland’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.

Liukkonen joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1989.

The President of the Republic appointed Ambassador Anu Saxén, Head of Mission at the Embassy of Finland in Dakar, to serve as a non-resident Ambassador to Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire.