Anne Berner

Anne-Catherine Berner (born 16 January 1964) is a Swiss-Finnish business executive, board professional and the current Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland. She’s the chair and main owner of Vallila Interior, a family owned interior design company. Berner was elected in 2012 as the chair and leader of the New Children's Hospital 2017, a private funded effort to build a new hospital for children in Helsinki. W

Early life

Berner was born in Helsinki to a Swiss, four children family, as the oldest sibling. She spent her childhood in Helsinki and attended a German school for 12 years. Berner’s background is modest, living in a small apartment and sharing the same room between four children, Berner and her three younger brothers. She once dreamed of becoming a medical professional and studied the field for a short time in a Swiss university. However, after her mother became seriously ill, she returned to her family in Finland. Berner graduated with a M.Sc. from Hanken School of Economics in 1986, and took the lead of their family company in 1989.

Business career

In 1989 Berner became the managing director of Vallila Interior, succeeding her father Rudolf Berner. She became chair of the company in 2012. During her time as CEO, Vallila grew in size from about 10 people to more than 140 employees in 2014.

In addition to her family-based business, Berner has done a long career as a board professional on several publicly listed Finnish and international companies.

Berner's organizational career include chairing the Finnish Family Firms Association 2005-2008, the Association for Finnish Work as chairman between 2010-2013 and 2013-2015, and the European Family Businesses 2011-2015 as member of the board.

Berner has also participated as a venture capitalist on Finland's and Sweden's versions of the television show Dragons' Den.

In 2006, Berner received the Prix Veuve Clicquot, as the Finnish business woman of the year. The Finnish Businessmen's Association named her in 2009 as the business man of the year. In 2014, Berner was given the order of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the President of the Republic.

The New Children's Hospital 2017

Before entering politics, Berner was best known as the public face and leader of a charity project to build a new children's hospital in Helsinki. The new children's hospital is scheduled for completion in 2017, in time to commemorate the centenary of Finnish independence. Berner serves on the hospital's support association, support foundation as chair from 2012 to present.

Political career

Berner was elected into the Finnish Parliament for Uusimaa in 2015 as a nonpartisan candidate for the Centre Party of Finland. She was then appointed to the Sipilä’s government, as the Minister of Transport and Communications in May 2015. Upon appointment to the government, she took the Centre Party membership. Berner's duties also include acting as the minister for Nordic Cooperation and the minister for Åland Island affairs.

Berner’s political views has been described as influenced by classical liberalism, with a strong belief in the value of entrepreneurship and responsible ownership. Berner has told that she'll only serve for four years in public office - one Finnish parliament election cycle.

Minister of Transport and Communications

A key political initiative of minister Berner's term has been a new transport code, constituting of a complete reform of the legalization governing the markets in the transport sector. The transport code reform has been seen as ground breaking in Europe, heavily deregulating existing transport legalization and on the other hand laying grounds for future transport models such as Mobility as a Service. The legal project will be implemented in three stages, with new road traffic legalization already presented to the parliament in August 2016. The transport code proposal has drawn criticism from the taxis, which are currently a fully regulated business, based on government issued quotas.

Berner has been proposed several means for Finland to meet its environmental and climate commitments set under the UN's Paris Agreement. Berner has stated that Finland would halve the amount of fossil fuel used in transport by 2030. In addition to promote more environmentally friendly propulsion means, such as biofuels and electrical vehicles, Berner has spoken for reducing the total mileage required by the society to produce its services.

In May 2016, Berner presented an idea to remodel the funding of the Finnish transport network and infrastructure. The concept is calling for a 100% state owned infrastructure company, which would move the funding out from the state budget into a company's balance sheet, and bring new financial instruments to fund the development of the country's roads, rails and fairways. The model is also thought to give means of favoring more environmentally friendly traffic models.

As a part of the key project and reforms defined in the Finnish Strategic Government Programme, Berner is working on a general deregulation and reduced administrative load in Finland. Another of the key effort Berner is handling calls for growth through digital services, e.g. digitalization, big data and robotization. Berner has also laid several initiatives in these fields, calling for Finland to drive leadership in the development and utilization of new technologies, including 5G networks, autonomous transport and IoT-based solutions.

Minister for Nordic Cooperation

Berner is the Finnish Minister for Nordic Cooperation. In 2016 Finland held the Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The chairmanship rotates between the Nordic countries on one-year terms. Berner has made several cooperation initiatives, including the promotion of digitalization and use of a common electronic ticketing system throughout the Nordics and the Baltics. During minister Berner’s period, questions regarding common security and immigration issues have been noticeable.

Minister for Åland Islands

Berner is the acting minister for the affairs of Åland Islands, an autonomous, demilitarised and monolingually Swedish-speaking region in Finland.

Personal life

Berner's family is of Swiss origin, and Berner uses Swiss German as her mother tongue with other family members. Berner's language skills include Finnish, Swedish, German, English and French. Berner is married and has three sons. Berner has a double citizenship, having both a Swiss and, since 19 January 2015, a Finnish citizenship.

Berner is known to own and drive a full-electric car.

Tax avoidance

Anne Berner has served on the board of a Luxembourg firm involved in tax avoidance. This is the first time a Finnish minister has been known to have been involved in such a company.