Text: Reeta Holma
Photos: Lehtikuva / Emmi Korhonen 

The article was first published in Finnish in the Tammenlastuja magazine 1/2023.

In February it was announced that the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s CEO starting from June 2023 will be Susanna Pettersson, PhD.

Pettersson has been in many demanding leadership and board of trustees positions in Finland and abroad. In her free time, she enjoys culture in many forms, but especially reading has been important to her since childhood. She makes sure to continue having enough time and opportunities for reading.

“I read both fiction and non-fiction from Finland and abroad. Right now I’m in the middle of two delightful books, one on the wonderful world of birds and one on the cultural history of wigs.”

Pettersson grew up in the part of Helsinki called Katajanokka, and she often checked out books from Helsinki’s beautiful former main library on Rikhardinkatu. Her mother’s roots are in the towns of Kälviä and Terijoki, her father’s in Ruovesi ja Lusi. She spent the summers of her childhood in the towns of Kuusamo and Mikkeli.

Another dear hobby is knitting, which Pettersson considers meditative. “When one’s job is complex and abstract, it feels great to get things done quickly on a small scale.”

She also spends time jogging and with her 13-year-old wire-haired dachshund. Her family includes a spouse and two adult children.

Inspiration and energy

“Good leadership depends on having other things in life besides work. Hobbies help us recharge, and we can get ideas and inspiration from them that provide energy we need at work.”

Pettersson describes herself as a value-based leader whose leadership philosophy centres on people. “I think it’s very important that people feel good in the workplace and that their expertise is appreciated at every level of the organization”, she says. “Traditional hierarchical thinking doesn’t fit into today’s world.”

Pettersson has been the director general of Sweden’s Nationalmuseum since 2018. When she announced she was leaving in February, she was asked if this was due to the difficulties such as the pandemic and inflation encountered by the museum in recent years.

“There were adversities during my tenure, but if I feared difficult things, I wouldn’t have even started at the Nationalmuseum”, she points out.

“Things can be difficult, but if the work environment is safe and encourages colleagues to develop ideas together and if people enjoy working there, even difficult things can be solved.” Creating such a work environment is one of the most important tasks of a leader according to Pettersson.

Getting a grant was crucial

Pettersson already has connections with the Finnish Cultural Foundation. She is a member of its support association, has held lectures at the Kirpilä Art Collection, has consulted the Museum Vision project, and has also received a grant from the Foundation. This three-year grant for her art history doctoral dissertation on building a public art collection was awarded in 2000, when multiyear grants were much less common than nowadays.

“Getting a grant from the Cultural Foundation was absolutely crucial for my career”, says Pettersson. The grant enabled concentrating on research and also enabled her family’s move to London, where she wrote the dissertation.

“Although time has already gone by since then, I’m still satisfied with the dissertation. I did the fundamental work carefully, and the beginnings of public art collecting in Finland were researched thoroughly and recorded.”

Academic endeavours

Pettersson has been in many demanding positions in her career. Before being in charge of the Nationalmuseum, she headed the Ateneum Art Museum, the Finnish Institute in London, and the Alvar Aalto Foundation and Museum. Simultaneously, she has always wanted to be active in academia.

She is an adjunct professor of museology at the University of Jyväskylä and enjoys mentoring doctoral dissertations. She keeps her own writing skills honed by annually publishing articles in her field. Recently an article appeared in the catalogue of the Nationalmuseum’s exhibition The Garden – Six Centuries of Art and Nature, and on the way is, for example, an article on Ulla-Maija Alanen’s photography and a book on Ola Kolehmainen’s newest works. An extensive book on Nordic art and social history from 1820 to 1920, which she is editing together with Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, is planned for 2024.

Nine years on the board of Aalto University have also provided her with a strong understanding of the academic world. “I was vice chair for two years and on the HR committee for nine years, where I participated in the recruitment of leading academic personnel”, Pettersson explains. “In my time at Aalto, I was able to acquaint myself in detail with the multidisciplinary world of academia.”

A manifestation of Finland’s civil society

Job interviews have the classic question “Why do you want to work for us?” What is Susanna Pettersson’s response?

“During my career, I have acquired a combination of various kinds of know-how that I believe will benefit the Foundation. I have experience working in several countries and in various jobs and on different trustee roles. I know the worlds of culture, art, and academia, and I have also had the chance to deal with the practices of donating.” 

She considers the Finnish Cultural Foundation to be unique.

“Many foundations revolve around a single donor or organization, whereas the Finnish Cultural Foundation has from the very beginning been a strong manifestation of Finland’s civil society”, Pettersson explains.

She considers the Foundation’s national scope to be an essential strength. As one of her first tasks, she intends to familiarize herself with its regional funds in order to get a picture of the Foundation’s activities that is as comprehensive as possible.

She also feels it’s important to collaborate with other foundations, for example, and calls for courage to engage in large joint endeavours. 

“It’s time to look at ways of doing things from a new angle. The very first thing I want to do is to talk about the visions for the future with everyone working at the Foundation.”

Similar research equipment is not available anywhere else in the Nordic countries.

The University of Oulu has received a sufficient amount of donations to acquire advanced ultrasound equipment for brain research. The high-quality device that opens the blood-brain barrier, also called the ‘brain cleaner’, enables the study of various targeted therapies and may be a decisive step in the development of healing therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, brain lymphoma and epilepsy, for example.

The glymphatic system of the brain has been studied for a long time at the University of Oulu. The purpose of the system is to clean the brain of waste material, especially during sleep. A breakthrough was made in the study of Alzheimer’s disease when Professor Vesa Kiviniemi’s research group succeeded in describing the abnormality in the glymphatic system in the brain of patients with the disease.

This finding is crucial for understanding the mechanisms leading to Alzheimer’s disease and, in the long term, also for the prevention and treatment of the disease.

“When the brain is unable to clean itself normally during sleep, waste materials accumulate. Over the years, this can lead to the development of brain diseases. Medical cleaning of the brain is difficult because the brain is designed to reject everything coming from the outside. With the help of the focused ultrasound (FUS) device, colloquially the ‘brain cleaner’, we can temporarily open the blood-brain barrier and deliver drugs to the right places with precision and, at the same time, flush away waste materials,” says Vesa Kiviniemi, Professor of Functional Neuroimaging.

A total of EUR 2.2 million in donations were collected for the brain cleaner. The most recent donation of EUR 700,000 was made by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

“The support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation came at just the right time. Combined with the previously received donations and pledges of EUR 1.5 million, the necessary funds for the FUS device are now in place. The device will significantly advance our research project,” says Professor Kiviniemi.

The University of Oulu conducts international-level research on the diagnostics of the brain’s glymphatic waste removal system and on targeted treatment options for various brain diseases. The researchers contributing to the work include Hanne Kuitunen, Director of Oulu University Hospital’s Cancer Centre, Mikael von und zu Fraunberg, Professor of Neurosurgery, research teams in neurology and psychiatry, and Biocenter Oulu’s microscopy researchers under the lead of Professor Lauri Eklund.

The acquisition of the device and the related research group will help establish a unique research centre of international standard in Oulu. There will be close cooperation at national level with universities and hospital centres, and at international level with research centres. 

The Finnish Cultural Foundation is a private foundation whose funds come entirely from wills and donations.

“Many donors support a certain field of research due to their own or a loved one’s illness. The Finnish Cultural Foundation has several donor funds which direct funding to research into Alzheimer’s disease, other brain diseases and neurological diseases,” says Hanna Hiidenpalo, Chair of the board of trustees of the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

“Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s disease and other memory disorders are affecting a growing number of Finns and their loved ones,” says Hiidenpalo. 

Benito Casagrande

The architect Benito Casagrande was born in Turku in 1942 and studied architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. Already in his 1970 master’s thesis, he studied Turku’s historical identity and suggested solutions that take into consideration both the historical accretions and the demands of today.

In 1983, Casagrande presented a plan to enliven Turku’s old town. This was a foundation for the ensuing successful efforts to restore the old city milieu to a more original form. Parking areas and other inappropriate structures were removed from the old main market, and several old wooden houses between the bridge Aurasilta and the market Vähätori were saved. This required above all perseverance and devotion to Turku but also good collaboration between Casagrande and civil servants and the Finnish Heritage Agency.

Thanks to Casagrande, the Ingman House, already threatened with demolition, was revitalised by renovation respectful of its history and under the supervision of the Finnish Heritage Agency. Today it is one of Turku’s most beautiful old buildings and provides premises for a restaurant, cafe, shops, and other businesses. A Catholic chapel was built to commemorate the people buried in the church ruins found in the archaeological excavations carried out under the building.

Benito Casagrande’s influence is visible in different parts of the city: in the University of Turku’s campus, in the Turku Science Park and its cluster of advanced technology and scientific research, in old factory buildings such as Manilla and Rettig turned into culture spaces, and in numerous business and office buildings. His energy, initiative, and creativity in dozens of board positions have influenced culture and businesses locally, regionally, and nation wide.

The award is conferred for respecting history and for preserving beauty.

Pekka Kuusisto

The violinist and conductor Pekka Kuusisto (born 1976) has become known as an exceptionally versatile musician who is equally at ease as a violin concerto soloist, conductor, chamber music player, composer, arranger, festival director, and folk musician and in a circus, on a theatre stage, and in jazz and the realm of electronic music – and in defending nature and justice.

Kuusisto’s violin studies, begun at the age of three, took him to the East Helsinki Music Institute and on to the Sibelius Academy and the University of Indiana and to becoming the so far first Finnish winner of the Sibelius Violin Competition in 1995. His home is in the Finnish town of Pernaja, but due to his strong international career, he actually works nearly all over the world. Currently he has regular orchestra engagements in Oslo, Basel, San Francisco, Bremen, and soon also Helsinki.

His classical repertoire ranges from Baroque to the most experimental contemporary music, and the list of his premieres is stunning. Nowadays Kuusisto has also become increasingly successful as a conductor in different parts of the world.

The award is conferred for mastery of the violin, baton, and bits and for questoning boundaries. 

Mirja Salkinoja-Salonen

Professor Mirja Salkinoja-Salonen (born 1940) is professor emerita of microbiology at the University of Helsinki and has had a renowned career. She is still doing research at the Aalto University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation and is focused on adapting sensor technology in research on indoor air problems.

At the beginning of her career, Salkinoja-Salonen studied the decomposition of synthetic and chlorinated compounds and focused mainly on paper pulp bleaching agents. Her research was very influential in the wood and paper industry’s decision to stop using chlorophenols, which are poisonous compounds that accumulate on lake and river bottoms.

Since the 1990s, Mirja Salkinoja-Salonen has studied the connection between chemicals and health in construction sites and housing. The PHMB compounds used in paints, glues, disinfectant and cleaning products, and cosmetics have turned out to be harmful especially in indoor air.  Salkinoja-Salonen’s research has shown that attempts to use chemicals to prevent or correct indoor air problems can at worst produce poisonous compounds that cause permanent damage to human nerves and the immune system.

Salkinoja-Salonen has combined technological, chemical, and microbiological research in exceptional ways. She has had no qualms about presenting research findings even when they recommended things that contradicted prevailing procedures in the food or construction industries or in agriculture.

Salkinoja-Salonen has received an honorary doctorate in technology from the Aalto University, and she invited to become a member of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2013.

The award is conferred for purifying the air, earth, and waters and for improving our health.