Tiina Merisalo was appointed director-general of the Finnish Heritage Agency in April 2020.

She has a Master of Arts in Art history, History and Ethnology from Helsinki University and has expanded her leadership and management skills with an Executive MBA degree from Aalto University Executive Education (2015) and other leadership programs including the Nordic Museum Management Program in Denmark. Previously, she led the Helsinki City Museum (2003-2020) and has 30 years of versatile museum experience, as well as in the cultural environment and built heritage research and protection in the city museums of Hanko, Espoo and Helsinki. During her time as the director, the Helsinki City Museum went through major changes and grew to become one of the most visited and successful museums in Finland. The museum received several awards including the Finnish Museum of the Year Award 2017, the Museums and Heritage International Award 2017 and the Special Commendation in European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA) 2018. During her leadership, the museum has been in the vanguard of Finnish museums in opening and making accessible the museum’s vast photo collections as open data and user-friendly services.

She has been an active member of the Finnish museum community and has held several positions of responsibility: she was twice vice-chair in the Board of Finnish Museums Association, member of the Board of Theatre Museum and of the Board of Representatives of the Museum of Finnish Architecture, among other boards.