Janne Viskari appointed as Director General of Population Register Centre

The Government appointed Janne Viskari, M.Sc. (Tech.) as Director General of the Population Register Centre on 9 November. Viskari will assume his post on 15 November. The appointment is for a fixed term of five years.

Viskari has worked at the Population Register Centre as a director and a member of the agency’s Management Board since 2014. As from the beginning of this year, he has served as Director of the Digital Services unit with responsibility for the development of digital services for citizens and the public administration. Prior to this, Viskari was head of the Service Architecture unit with responsibility for the implementation of the National Architecture for Digital Services programme. Before that, Viskari worked in senior management roles at Finnish Customs and in the private sector.

“In our work, the focus will be on customer-orientation, which will allow us to provide both ordinary citizens and organisations with better service through electronic and personal service channels. The growing role of the Population Register Centre as an authority promoting cross-administrative digitalisation and the proposed merger of Local Register Offices with the Population Register Centre will create excellent opportunities for making the agency’s services into a clear and easy-to-use concept in which consideration is given to different life situations of its customers", says Viskari.

"Work on the focus areas set out in the strategy of the Population Register Centre (better customer service and bold reforms) will continue. We are also planning to establish customer cooperation groups so that we can expand the dialogue with our customers. We will also start a development project in which the aim is to make the steering and advisory tasks that are included in the national implementation of digitalisation and that will become the responsibility of the Population Register Centre on 1 January 2018 into a unified part of Suomi.fi”, cintinues Viskari.

A total of 18 applications were received for the post of Director General of the Population Register Centre.

The Population Register Centre promotes the digitalisation of society and electronic services in Finland. Together with the local register offices, it provides the data in the Population Information System, enables its wide use in society, offers certified electronic services and provides and develops shared support services for the electronic services of the public administration.

Further information:

Janne Viskari, Director General (as from 15 November 2017), Population Register Centre, tel. +358 295 535 022, janne.viskari(at)vrk.fi

Anna-Maija Karjalainen, Director General, Public Sector ICT, Ministry of Finance, tel. +358 295 530 165, anna-maija.karjalainen(at)vm.fi