Antti Pentikäinen

Antti Pentikäinen is the Director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation and is Research Professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Alongside leading MHCR, Antti is working as a visiting scholar at the US Institute for Peace. Before his work at MHCR, Antti established the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers with the U.N. (2015-2019) while also serving as the special envoy for Finland’s Prime Minister on the Refugee Crisis (2015-2019) as well as advisor to the U.N. Assistant Secretary-General on Prevention of Genocide (2017). For over a decade, Antti led the efforts of Finn Church Aid (2004-2015) as its executive director, and assumed multiple leadership positions including Special Advisor for President Ahtisaari, director at Crisis Management Initiative (2000-2004) and Religions for Peace (2010-2011). Antti holds experience in peace processes and reconciliation in Somalia, South Sudan and Libya. His efforts now focus on developing support mechanisms to connect insider reconcilers with state level political processes.