G. A. Gripenberg

Georg Achates Gripenberg (18 May 1890 Saint Petersburg – 31 May 1975 Helsinki) was a Finnish diplomat. He served as Envoy of Finland to London in 1933–1941 and in from 1943 to 1956 and the first Ambassador to the United Nations from 1956 to 1958.

G.A. Gripenberg belonged to Gripenberg noble family, and his father was a senior civil servant of independence activism, the real State Councilor Alexis Gripenberg His mother was Agnes Maria Fredrika von Haartman, a member of von Haartman noble family.

Gripenberg wrote a matriculation examination in 1907 from Gymnasiet Lärkan from Helsinki and graduated as a Bachelor of Philosophy from the University of Helsinki in 1911 and as a bachelor of lawyer from the Uppsala University in Sweden in 1917. In 1908–1909 he also studied at Oxford University and London School of Economics in England.

When Alexis Gripenberg was appointed in January 1918 as Finland's first diplomatic representative to Sweden, G. A. Gripenberg acted as a private secretary to his father for a while before moving to Finland to join the civil war in the White Guard.

Gripenberg was hired in Finland's newly established Ministry for Foreign Affairs Department in 1918. He was initially a secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but resigned the following year. In 1920 he was recruited back to the ministry's office. Permanent Secretary. Because of the lack of qualified diplomats at that time, he quickly became a foreign mission.

Gripenberg initially served as Chargé d'Affaires in 1921–1923 in Brussels and The Hague, 1923–1929 as Chargé d'Affaires in Madrid and Lisbon, and in 1929–1933 as Envoy to Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro (1931–1933 also in Santiago de Chile).

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