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Name: Lintu, Pekka
Current Position: Ambassador

Pekka Lintu has served as Finland’s Ambassador to the United States since January 2006.

 
Lintu began his career with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1972 after completing a Masters of Arts degree at the University of Helsinki. He has been posted in Marseilles (1972-73), at the Department of External Economic Relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1973-1975), at Finland’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva (1975-79), at Finland’s Permanent Delegation to the OECD in Paris (1984-87) and in Tokyo as Ambassador to Japan (1994-2000). He served as counselor, director, consulting first secretary (1979-1981), counselor (1984-1987), director (1987-1989), counsulting counselor (1989-1991), deputy director (1991-1994), and acting director general (1994) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
 
In the early 1990s, he was in charge of economic relations between Finland and the US, and from 2001 to 2005 was Under-Secretary for External Economic Affairs, serving at the 133-Trade Policy Committee of the EU and participating in the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round.
 
Lintu’s wife, Laurel Colless, began working on energy reduction in US buildings through a partnership with Virginia Tech. Colless herself is a former high-level employee of Nokia Corp., a Finnish telecommunications giant. She is from New Zealand and met Lintu while they were both working in Tokyo.
 
Lintu’s favorite American TV shows are The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert.
 
Promoting Finland’s Business: An Interview with Ambassador Pekka Lintu (WashingtonInternational.com)
Finnish Fare (Embassy Chef)
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