Ambassador Yrjölä serves as Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre and Deputy Head of the OSCE Secretariat since February 2020. Before joining the OSCE Secretariat she was Ambassador for Democratic and Effective Societies at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in Helsinki.

Ambassador Yrjölä’s previous experience with the OSCE comes from Tajikistan, where she was Head of the Programme Office in Dushanbe in 2016-2018. With over 30 years of experience in the Finnish diplomatic service, thirteen of that on Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia, she has previously served as Roving Ambassador to Central Asia and Ambassador of Finland to Egypt and Sudan. Other postings include Kyiv and New York.