Mayor Kalervo Kummola

Kalervo Kummola (b. 1945) has been as Mayor of Tampere since 2023. He is a well-known Finnish ice hockey influencer, Member of the City Council of Tampere (National Coalition Party) and former Member of Parliament.

Kummola has worked in the City Council of Tampere between 1989 and 2004 and again since 2017, and in the City Board between 1989 and 1997. In 1997–1999, he served as vice-chair of the City Council, and as a member of the National Coalition Party in 1999–2003. He served as Managing Director of Tampere Hall Ltd from 2004 to 2012. In 2016, Kummola was given the honorary title of Consul General.

Kummola has a Vocational Qualification in Business degree, and his military rank is Major in the reserve in the Finnish army. He lives in Tampere with his wife Tuula, and they have two children and two grandchildren.

Kummola has been a member of the Board of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association since 1975, vice-president in 1990–1997 and president in 1997–2016. Kummola chaired the Champions League between 2008 and 2010. He has been Finland's representative at the Congress meetings of the International Ice Hockey Federation since 1976. In 1998, he was elected to the Board of Directors of IIHF and served as Vice President of IIHF between 2003 and 2021.

Kummola was elected as the first chief executive officer of the ice hockey SM-liiga in 1975. In 1987, as one of the founders, he became the chief-executive officer of the production company VipVision. Kummola has also participated in setting up the TV channel Nelonen and acted as Vice President of its Board of Directors between 1996 and 2001. Kummola brought karaoke to Finland.

He has been one of the founders of the football club Tampere United. In 1979, he participated in establishing the Hockey Hall of Fame Finland, ennobling him as “Ice Hockey Lion” number 106 in 1996.

In April 2016, the President of the Republic granted Kummola the Grand Cross of Merit for Finnish Sports Culture and Sport. In January 2019, Kummola was awarded in the Finnish Sports Gala for his life's work within Finnish ice hockey.