Juhana Vartiainen

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Juhana Mikael Vartiainen, born on 28 May 1958 in Helsinki, Finland, is a Finnish politician and economist. He has been a member of the Finnish Parliament and, from August 2021 to June 2025, the Mayor of Helsinki. He represents the National Coalition Party; he was a member of the Social Democratic Party from 1975 to 2015.

Vartiainen grew up in Helsinki in a Christian family. His parents were Karelians who fled to Finland. His father, Henri Vartiainen, was an economist, and his mother was born in Viipuri in 1931. He has three sisters. He completed his mandatory military service and holds the rank of lieutenant in the reserve.

He studied economics and social sciences at the University of Helsinki, earning a Doctor of Social Sciences in 1992. His career included research positions in Helsinki and Stockholm, work at the Finnish Labour Institute (1993–2005), and leadership roles at the Swedish Trade Union Institute (Managing Director, 2003–2005) and Konjunkturinstitutet (2005–2012). In 2012 he became Director General of the Finnish VATT Institute for Economic Research.

Vartiainen left the SDP in 2015, saying the party was moving away from right-leaning social democracy and could not reform public finances for Finland’s aging population. He was elected to Parliament in 2015 from Helsinki with 11,436 votes and was re-elected in 2019 with 8,206 votes. In the 2021 Helsinki municipal elections, he ran for mayor as the National Coalition Party candidate and was elected to the city council with 13,898 votes. The NCP won the most seats in Helsinki, and Vartiainen became mayor in August 2021; Atte Kaleva then took his seat in Parliament.

Vartiainen describes himself as a "right-leaning social democrat" and supports work-based immigration. He does not support the Marin government’s social and healthcare reform (sote-uudistus), calling it costly and counter-productive.