Cross-country skier Kerttu Niskanen built a million-euro fortune

Kerttu Niskanen did not simply leave cross-country skiing with medals. She also turned her success on the trails into more than €1.2 million in company wealth.

The 38-year-old skier’s wholly owned Kerttu Niskanen Oy reported equity of more than €1.2 million at the end of November 2025. The company held €608,000 in investments and nearly €547,000 in cash in bank accounts. Its debt stood at only about €25,000.

The figures from the past five financial years show an unusually profitable business. Between 2021 and 2025, the company recorded total revenue of €1.38 million and operating profit of more than €1 million. In 2021, revenue reached €131,400 and operating profit €131,298, producing an operating margin of almost 100%. The following year, the company made €369,000 in operating profit on revenue of €398,000.

Operating profit then came to about €182,000 in 2023, €127,000 in 2024 and €247,000 in 2025. The company’s bank balance first exceeded €1 million at the end of the 2022 financial year. Costs increased later, including travel expenses of about €66,000, vehicle costs of nearly €8,700 and €30,000 in wages in 2023, but remained modest compared with revenue.

That light cost structure reflects a business built largely around Niskanen’s value as an athlete. Its income came from sponsorships, partnership agreements, other commercial work and prize money. Niskanen won several Olympic and world championship medals, nine World Cup races, and two medals at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Her prize money while skiing for Vieremän Koitto exceeded half a million euros. In recent years, she also shifted company cash into investments, which rose from none at the end of 2023 to about €608,000 by November 2025.