Draft:Annika Arras

• Comment: Self-published sources such as Linkedin are not reliable TNM101 (in solidarity · chat) 14:22, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

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Annika Arras (born 13 December 1979) is an Estonian political affairs and strategic

Annika Arras, Photo Credit: Priit Simson / Delfi

communications expert as well as women's leadership advocate and educator.

She is the CEO and founder of the consultation firm Miltton New Nordics and an author of many training programmes

Education

Arras studied Finnish philology at Tallinn Pedagogical University (2003, Bachelor's degree, BA), media and communication in the Master's programme at the University of Tartu (2003–2005, unfinished), and business administration at the Estonian Business School (2021, Master's degree, MBA).

In 2025, she obtained a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

Career

From 2004 to 2015, she worked for the Estonian Reform Party, where in the early years she was involved in organising internal communications, training, and campaigns and from 2007 onwards, she led the Reform Party's election campaigns. She has been a member of the Reform Party since 2004.

In 2016, together with Martin Kukk, Gerrit Mäesalu, and the Nordic region's leading advisory agency Miltton Group, they founded the government and corporate relations agency Miltton Nordics in Estonia. In 2018, Miltton Nordics merged with the communication agency JLP, founded by Kristi Liiva, to create Miltton New Nordics, a strategic communications company with international ambitions. Annika Arras has since been the chief executive officer (CEO) of this joint venture.

Founded in Finland in 2001, Miltton is a communications group that has expanded over time from communications consultancy into government relations, talent development and training, change management, investor relations, advertising and international relations consultancy. The founder of the Miltton Group is Mathias Järnström.

In 2025, Arras was a top-three finalist in the "25 Best Estonian Top Executives" award. "I'm grateful to my leaders for giving me challenges and not telling me how to solve them, but instead providing me with the opportunity to find my own path to a solution," Arras said.

Annika Arras has advised many politicians on political communication and election strategies in multiple European and Middle Eastern countries.

Annika Arras has also been active in the restaurant industry, when she owned and operated the Tallinn restaurant Kuldmokk until 2019.

Civic and Voluntary Work

In 2015, together with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, she founded the European Women's Academy of Political Leadership and Campaigning, which in 2020 was renamed to The Alliance of Her. "When we want to have more women in power, we have to empower". Arras said in an introductory video on Facebook, that she has avoided going into politics herself. This is because she felt that she has a bigger impact in her current roles, as going into politics, it would just be about her. She has brought over 200 women into politics which she feels is more important than her own potential career in politics. In the Alliance of Her, she sought out to help get more women into politics. "Our goal is to build women's confidence so they can move beyond their fear zone. Once that confidence is there, nothing will stop them!"

In cooperation with Miltton New Nordics, Arras co-organised a job shadowing day for girls, with the aim of bringing more women into leadership positions as well as breaking stereotypes by bringing together female leaders and young girls.

Since 2021, Annika Arras has been a politics observer on the Estonian current affairs podcast Poliitikaguru. As a political observer, she has commented on both the 2023 parliamentary elections in Estonia, as well as later events in Estonian politics as well as the 2024 presidential elections in Finland.

Annika Arras is a board member of the Estonian Sustainable Business Forum. In addition to that, she is a member of the supervisory board for the Estonian Association of NGOs. Arras was also a member of the board of directors at the American Chamber of Commerce in Estonia from May 2022 until April 2024.

Political Commentary on Global Politics

Arras lived in Georgia and covered the 2024 parliamentary elections in the country in an Äripäev article. She raised concern over the violations in the electoral process as well as the political violence. Having advised and assisted in the Georgian opposition parties in political campaigning, she expressed support for the opposition in the elections.

Political affairs in the Middle East are topics Arras has also written articles about. She discussed the usage of the terms "antisemite" and "genocide" in a 2024 Äripäev article. In her view, Estonian society was in the midst of a discussion far more wide-reaching than just the case of the Estonian Academy of Arts cancelling all partnerships with Israeli universities. According to Arras, it is inevitable that regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, there will be comparisons with the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including the transfer of the dynamics of the latter conflict to the former. Moreover, who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed depends entirely on a person's own subjective perception, which is usually made particularly simplistic by a poor understanding of the region's history.

The opinion piece published in January 2026 discusses the usage of war as a political tool, drawing on the actions taken in early 2026 by the United States in Venezuela as well as in Iran. Annika Arras suggests that war has become a useful tool in modern-day politics, which feeds interests both internally and externally.

In April 2026, her article on the Estonian news website Delfi commented on the results of the Bulgarian parliamentary elections. In the article, Arras and Bulgarian political analyst, Mila Moshelova, highlighted the concern regarding Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev's Eurosceptic policies and how it could negatively affect the unity as well as decisionmaking processes within the European Union.

In another interview given in the Estonian public broadcaster's news magazine programme Ringvaade, she provided insight into the fragile ceasefire in Iran. "The contents of the ceasefire included little more besides the fact that the ceasefire would be in effect for two weeks and that the negotiations would be started".

Commentary on Social Affairs and Political Culture

In a 2025 radio interview to the Estonian Public Broadcasting, Arras suggested that good quality politics requires professional leadership. "The patterns of actions are deeply ingrained in Estonian political culture and they persist due to the fact that there has not been many new faces in politics", she said. In order to enable more people to get into politics, the existing systemns need to be more accommodating. She also posed the question of why new parties in Estonian politics struggle to maintain their initial momentum, particularly with the case of Eesti 200.

References

Category:1979 births Category:Tallinn University alumni