Lauri Lavanti builds software at a bank and makes decisions on the municipal council. His view of technology is grounded in practical experience and expertise — not hype or theory.
He is a lead developer, municipal councillor in Kirkkonummi, and chair of the Greens council group. He graduated as a Master of Science (Tech.) from Aalto University and focuses on AI, economic policy, entrepreneurship, and digital independence. Digital independence, privacy, and the responsible adoption of AI are all part of the same whole: how we build technological development that is both competitive and sustainable.
Lauri also has a Wikipedia article (in Finnish).
A technology expert who combines competitiveness and privacy
I work as a lead developer and am responsible for the technical solutions of our team’s services. My work focuses on the design, development, and maintenance of demanding systems. I manage technical guidelines and engage in active dialogue with stakeholders to ensure that solutions meet real needs and stand the test of time.
For me, digitalization is not just a technical issue, but also a social and ethical one. I make sure that solutions are not only functional today, but also secure and maintainable tomorrow. Technology must be safe, functional, and serve people.
Finland has been a model country for high technology for decades. AI is reshaping work, services, and trust in digital systems. We need people in decision-making who understand technology in practice — not just comment on it from the sidelines.
Why did I get into politics?
In politics, I focus particularly on AI, economic policy, and digitalisation — and on how Finland can remain competitive while safeguarding privacy and digital independence. Society is rapidly becoming digitalized, but public administration and decision-making do not always keep pace with developments. The same challenge applies across Finland.
I serve as a municipal councillor in Kirkkonummi and as chair of the Green council group.
We need a better understanding of the opportunities and risks presented by technology, as well as the courage to invest in education and high-productivity technological development. It is important that Finland does not fall behind in terms of expertise or competitiveness.
Digital independence and civic action
I am the initiator and primary contact of the Digital Independence citizen initiative. The initiative calls for legislation ensuring that critical public digital services and data remain in the hands of Finnish and European actors, on servers located in the EU/EEA area.
Digital independence supports European technological development, reduces dependence on individual vendors, and creates better conditions for domestic software development. It is not an ideology but a practical prerequisite for a functioning society — and it also strengthens democracy and citizens’ rights.
Multidisciplinarity and a broad perspective
By training, I am a Master of Science (Tech.) from the study programme of information networks. The program is based on information technology, but it also covers other subjects such as aesthetics and philosophy. The program taught me to view systems as both technical and humane entities.
My multidisciplinary background has given me the ability to act smoothly as a bridge builder, fostering mutual understanding between different professional groups. I also always examine technology from the perspective of its significance, impact, and responsibility. In practice, that means I can speak with both technical experts and business units — and make sure they understand each other.
At home and off duty
My four children are the focus of my free time. Everyday life consists of hobbies, excursions, and moments spent together. Parenting teaches me a lot about emotional skills, interaction, and continuous practice and development.
Board games, video games, literature, and team sports have been a part of my life for a long time. Even though my busy schedule limits my time, I think it’s important to make room for these interests—and I replace team sports with active jogging.
You can find my latest thoughts on Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Civic roles
- Municipal councillor Kirkkonummi municipality 2025–
- In the council, we decide on the municipality strategy, budget and larger individual decisions.
- Chair of the Green council group Kirkkonummi municipality 2025–
- Responsible for coordinating the group's positions and leading its work in the council.
- Member of the municipal development committee Kirkkonummi municipality 2025–
- The municipal development committee decides on land use and zoning in the municipality.
- Chair Greens of Kirkkonummi 2025
- Led Kirkkonummi Greens through the 2025 municipal elections — consolidating the party's position as the third-largest party in Kirkkonummi with significant new membership.
- Built and managed the full candidate slate; worked directly with the campaign manager on strategy and execution.
- Improved organisation and ways of working to be less dependant on specific people.
- Deputy member of the premises services committee Kirkkonummi municipality 2023–2025
- Deputy member of the board Greens of Kirkkonummi 2023–2024
- Deputy member of the board of Western Uusimaa Rescue Services Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County 2022–2025
- Deputy member of the Finnish-language education committee Kirkkonummi municipality 2021–2025
- Member of the basic welfare section Kirkkonummi municipality 2021–2022
- Municipal election captain Information Networks Guild Athene 2015
- First board member at Athene responsible for international students — the role itself was new because the study programme had only just opened to Master's-level international students.
- Built the guild's internal practices for supporting international students.
- Coordinated across guilds to align how Aalto's technical study programmes serve international students, not just within Athene.
- Chair of the board Aalto Predators 2014–2015
- Took the team from the second to last of the series to university champions during my tenure.
- Started live-streaming our matches — the stream trended on Reddit and earned one of our commentators an interview on a US morning radio show.
- Built up recruitment alongside competitive results.
- Board member Aalto Predators 2013
- Built the team's external communications from scratch — match reports, social media, and the website.
- Handled board administration and record-keeping as secretary.
- Chair of the youth council board Kirkkonummi municipality 2010
- Led the board's decision-making, including opening Kirkkonummi's first (and Finland's third) legal graffiti wall.
Work experience
- Lead developer OP (Helsinki) 2024–
- Own the technical roadmap for the team's services: architecture, key tooling choices, and the trade-offs between time-to-market and long-term maintainability.
- Lead the team's process for technical decision-making and ways of working — including how we evaluate new technologies (AI/ML tooling, observability, security posture) before adopting them.
- Drive long-term capability and vision work to keep the team viable as demands shift.
- Team Lead Verkkokauppa.com (Helsinki) 2022–2024
- Owned the team's technical direction and architectural decisions.
- Drove ways-of-working improvements across the wider IT organisation, not only the immediate team.
- Led developer recruitment for the team: interviewing, hiring, and onboarding new developers into the webstore codebase and processes.
- Software developer Verkkokauppa.com (Helsinki) 2019–2022
- Led the team's process for improving and synchronising the codebase across teams.
- Acted as the main interface between the developer team and product ownership — translating business intent into delivery decisions and pushing back where engineering trade-offs mattered.
- Co-owned developer recruitment and onboarding alongside delivery work.
- Software developer Gofore (Helsinki) 2019
- After Gofore bought Solinor, I continued on the same project for a while. Afterwards I switched to a similar project in another industry.
- Owned frontend technical decisions for the PaaS, balancing customer constraints against long-term maintainability of the platform.
- Conducted developer recruitment for the customer organisation — interviewing candidates and shaping hiring criteria.
- Software developer Solinor (Helsinki) 2015–2019
- Consultant on a large Platform-as-a-Service project; for most of the engagement, I was the technical lead on the frontend side, in close collaboration with the backend team and the customer's product owners.
- Owned frontend technical decisions for the PaaS, balancing customer constraints against long-term maintainability of the platform.
- Conducted developer recruitment for both Solinor and the customer organisation — interviewing candidates and shaping hiring criteria.
- Contributed to Solinor's company-wide ways-of-working improvements.
- Software engineer Zalando (Helsinki) 2017–2018
- Designed and built a graph visualisation and management tool from scratch using React, TypeScript, D3 and PIXI.js — used by domain experts to maintain the fashion ontology powering Zalando's catalogue.
- Worked in a mixed-skillset agile team and led frontend hiring.
- Software developer Futurice (Helsinki) 2015–2017
- Final project: tech lead on a two-site project bridging two of the company's branches, with end-to-end responsibility for the technical aspects of the delivery.
- Active in customer relations throughout — most projects required translating between the customer's intent and the team's delivery.
- Software developer Pulmaton Solutions Oy (Helsinki) 2014
- Software developer on the company's main product — a cloud-hosted financial reporting tool with a Java backend and HTML/JavaScript/CSS frontend.
- Seasonal trainee Nokia Solutions & Networks (Espoo) 2013
- Trainee developer building an internal ticket-management system for product owners in a Scrum-based process — implemented in Python.
Education
- Master of Science (Tech.) in Information Networks Aalto University (Espoo) 2012–2018
- Extended major in ICT in Business — chosen over a traditional minor to spend more credits on the intersection of technology, business, and decision-making. The programme gave me the toolkit I have used in every role since: rapidly understanding complex systems, mapping how they interact with their environment, and acting as a translation layer between technology and business.
- Master's thesis: case study on designing and developing an ontology editor for fashion domain experts — done at Zalando, where I built the tool.
- Vocational qualification in data processing Omnia vocational college (Kirkkonummi) 2007–2011
- Completed as part of a triple qualification alongside full high school studies and a matriculation examination. Completing three qualifications simultaneously was a deliberate choice — I wanted technical depth alongside the academic path.
- The vocational track covered information networks and technologies.
- Finnish matriculation examination Masala upper secondary school (Kirkkonummi) 2007–2011