He went on to form a five-party government coalition, and was officially appointed Prime Minister by President Sauli Niinistö on 24 June 2014.

In 2016, Stubb's leadership was challenged from within the party by MP Elina Lepomäki and Interior Minister Petteri Orpo.

[12] In 1995, Stubb graduated with an MA degree in political science (European affairs) from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Wallace later said: "LSE has had a number of extremely bright Finnish students in recent years – but Alex was one of the most outstanding."

Stubb's thesis was called Flexible Integration and the Amsterdam Treaty: negotiating differentiation in the 1996–97 IGC[13] and it dealt with the 1996–97 Intergovernmental Conference of the European Union.

[16] From 1999 to 2001, Stubb was a researcher in Finland's representation in the European Union in Brussels, and a member of the Finnish government's delegation to the intergovernmental negotiations for the Treaty of Nice.

In 2003 he returned to Finland's representation to the EU as a special expert and to the intergovernmental negotiations, this time for the European Constitution.

He called for greater awareness of the costs of translation, which he calculated as 511 million euros in 2005 for the Parliament, Commission and Council together.

In July 2010, Stubb invited the head of Al-Jazeera Wadah Khanfar and former President Martti Ahtisaari to discuss about the role of media in conflict resolution.

In 2010, Stubb and Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt proposed the European Institute of Peace.

[23] Jyrki Katainen, the Finnish Finance Minister and chairman of National Coalition Party, supported Stubb stating he was surprising, courageous and that he "puts a smile on one's face".

[24] As the Foreign Minister of Finland, Stubb was the Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from 5 April 2008 to 31 December 2008.

[32] The Russo-Georgian War occurred during this period, and OSCE brokered an agreement to send military observers to the area.

In January 2011, Stubb and EU Foreign Commissioner Catherine Ashton worked together to help hundreds of beaten and imprisoned opposition activists in Belarus.

[33][34] During the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Stubb expressed hope that power in Egypt would be transferred to a democratically elected government as fast as possible and without violence.

[37] (As Prime Minister he would later change his stance after further escalation in Eastern Ukraine, describing EU's sanctions against Russia necessary.

He formed a five party government coalition, and was officially appointed Prime Minister by President Sauli Niinistö on 24 June.

The recent crisis in Ukraine as well as the dispute over free trade between Russia and Finland has made the issue thornier.

[47] Stubb's term as Minister of Finance drew criticism due to his perceived insensitivity towards the effects of the spending cuts he introduced, which affected the Finnish welfare state and public education system.

[48][49] In November and December 2015, Stubb was in the middle of a scandal when he was accused of lying to the Finnish Parliament consistently and deliberately.

In November, Stubb had said to Parliament that 90 percent of the experts who had given a statement were supporting the government's pact to make it possible for Finns to own publicly listed companies' stock through nominee accounts.

In his reply, Jonkka stated that Stubb's mistake in numbers was not deliberate, but was rather an unfortunate, whilst understandable, result of a fast-paced discussion over a policy draft.

[54] On 15 June 2017, Stubb was chosen as the vice-president of the European Investment Bank, after the previous representative from Finland Jan Vapaavuori had vacated the seat.

[57] In June 2017, Stubb was nominated by former President Martti Ahtisaari to assume the leadership of the Crisis Management Initiative, a non-governmental organisation that works to prevent and resolve conflicts.

[64] On 14 August 2023, the board of the National Coalition Party decided to formally request Stubb to be the presidential candidate.

The same day he was sworn in, King Carl XVI Gustaf invited Stubb to visit Sweden in April.

[72] On 7 March 2024, Stubb made his first foreign trip as Finland's new president to Nato's Nordic Response military exercise in northern Norway.

When he was the Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2008, Stubb gave a speech in which he argued in favour of the EU taking an active role in international politics.

Since his professorship at the College of Europe, Stubb has published 16 books, dozens of academic articles, and hundreds of columns.

[96] Source:[97] In the early 1990s, when Stubb went to the United States to study, he met fellow student Kerstin Armstrong (née Reinhold) and they dated at university for three years.