Santtu Seppälä: Sarah Rafferty’s Husband, Career, and Family
Santtu Seppälä is a finance executive and investor who is also known as the husband of Suits actress Sarah Rafferty. His career has included investment research, hedge fund management, founding Kiitos Capital Management, and a current strategy role at shipping technology company Staxxon.
In this article, you will learn about Santtu Seppälä’s finance career, Yale and Wharton education, work at Lazard and Cantillon, marriage to Sarah Rafferty, and their family life. You will also see what he is doing today and why his own career is much more important than the simple label of “Sarah Rafferty’s husband.” Let’s start with the work he built long before Suits became a television hit.
Santtu Seppälä Built a Long Career in Finance
Santtu Seppälä has spent much of his working life in investing and business strategy. His professional background reaches across stock research, hedge funds, investment management, and logistics technology.
A 2016 paper published by Kiitos Capital described him as the founder, managing member, and chief investment officer of the firm. At that point, he had 17 years of investment experience.
Before starting Kiitos, he spent five years at Cantillon Capital Management. His work there included research for the firm’s funds and managing the Cantillon Health Fund.
Earlier, he spent another five years at Lazard Asset Management. His job focused on researching companies for international large, mid, and small-cap investment funds.
That background gives a much clearer picture of him than many short celebrity profiles. He did not become a businessman because he married an actress. His finance career was already well established.
Yale and Wharton Shaped His Business Background
Education played an important part in his path.
Kiitos Capital’s own material says Santtu earned a bachelor’s degree in Ethics, Politics and Economics from Yale College. He later earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Yale degree is broader than a standard finance major. Ethics, politics, and economics brings together ideas about markets, government, public policy, and the way people and institutions make choices.
Wharton then gave him a more direct business education before he moved deeper into investment work.
People has also reported that Sarah Rafferty and Santtu knew each other from their Yale years. Their relationship therefore reaches back well before either of them became widely known to television audiences.
Kiitos Capital Put Him in the Founder’s Seat
Santtu Seppälä founded Kiitos Capital Management in 2008 after his years at Lazard and Cantillon.
The firm managed an investment fund focused on companies affected by major healthcare, environmental, and agriculture trends. Kiitos used the term “Global H.E.A.T.” for those areas.
The fund looked at businesses facing long-term changes in health, the environment, and food systems. That meant the strategy was built around larger economic trends rather than short-term celebrity-style investing.
Public U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission records also connect Santtu with Kiitos Global Opportunities and list him as an executive officer connected to the fund.
This period of his career is important because it shows him moving from analyst and portfolio manager to founder and investment leader.
His Current Work Connects Finance With Shipping Technology
Santtu’s career later moved into a different area of business.
Staxxon currently lists Santtu Seppälä as its chief strategy officer. The company is developing folding shipping containers that are designed to reduce the space taken up by empty containers.
That may sound far removed from hedge funds, but the role still uses the same kind of business thinking. Strategy work requires a strong understanding of markets, costs, growth, and the way an industry changes over time.
Staxxon says its goal is to make shipping more efficient and more sustainable. Empty shipping containers are expensive to store and move, so folding them can help reduce wasted space.
The company has also used Santtu as a public voice on supply-chain issues. He has discussed container shortages, shipping costs, and the problems caused when empty containers are in the wrong places.
His move into logistics shows that his career has continued to change rather than staying inside one corner of finance.
Sarah Rafferty and Santtu Have Been Together Since Their Yale Years
Many readers first come across Santtu Seppälä because of Sarah Rafferty.
Rafferty is best known for playing Donna Paulsen on the USA Network legal drama Suits. The show ran for nine seasons and later found another large audience through streaming.
Their relationship, however, started long before the show.
People reports that Rafferty and Santtu have been together since their Yale days. They married on June 23, 2001.
That means their marriage was already about a decade old when Suits premiered in 2011.
USA Network has also highlighted the length of their relationship while covering Rafferty’s life away from the series.
The timing matters. Santtu was not someone who entered her life after Hollywood success. Their relationship was already well established while both were building their careers.
Their Marriage Has Lasted More Than Two Decades
Sarah Rafferty and Santtu Seppälä celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in 2021.
Rafferty marked the date publicly with a wedding photo and a short message to her husband. People later included their long marriage in coverage of the real-life partners of the Suits cast.
The couple are sometimes seen together at public events, premieres, and industry gatherings. Santtu still keeps a much lower profile than his wife.
That balance has stayed fairly consistent. Rafferty’s acting work puts her in front of cameras. His work is mostly tied to investment and business.
They share a public connection, but they have not turned their marriage into a separate media brand.
They Are Parents to Two Daughters
Santtu and Sarah have two daughters, Oona Gray and Iris Friday.
People reports that Oona was born in 2007 and Iris in 2012.
Rafferty has spoken about the challenge of raising children while working on television, especially when Suits filmed in Toronto. Her family sometimes had to manage life between different cities while she worked.
That part of their story gives useful context to Santtu’s role away from business. He and Rafferty were raising two children while both careers continued.
The family has kept much of the daughters’ daily life private. Rafferty has shared some family moments over the years, but the children have not been turned into constant public content.
His Career Is Separate From Sarah Rafferty’s Fame
It is easy for a celebrity spouse to become known only through the more famous partner. Santtu Seppälä is a good example of why that can leave out most of the story.
His work history includes two major investment firms, his own investment company, and a senior strategy job in shipping technology.
He also has degrees from Yale and Wharton.
Those facts explain why calling him only “Sarah Rafferty’s husband” is incomplete. Their marriage is an important part of his public story, but it is not his profession.
His own career has run for decades and has moved through several parts of the business world.
Why Staxxon Is an Interesting Turn in His Career
Staxxon gives Santtu a role in an industry that affects almost everyone, even if most people rarely think about it.
Shipping containers carry products around the world. When those containers are empty, companies still have to move and store them.
Staxxon’s folding design aims to reduce that problem by allowing several empty containers to take up the space normally used by one standard container.
For a finance professional, that creates several business questions. Can the technology cut costs? Can ports use it easily? Can shipping firms fit it into existing systems? Can it reduce wasted fuel and space?
Those are the kinds of issues that make strategy work important.
His role at Staxxon therefore fits the wider pattern of his career. He has spent years looking at companies, markets, long-term trends, and business decisions.
What Santtu Seppälä Is Doing Today
As of 2026, Staxxon’s management page still lists Santtu Seppälä as chief strategy officer.
His current public work is therefore tied to shipping technology and business strategy.
He remains married to Sarah Rafferty, and recent People coverage still describes the couple as a long-term pair with two daughters.
Rafferty has continued acting after Suits, including her role in Netflix’s My Life with the Walter Boys. Santtu has continued on a very different professional track.
That difference is one of the most useful things to understand about them. They are connected through family, but their careers belong to separate worlds.
A Finance Career That Stands on Its Own
Santtu Seppälä is best known to many television fans because he is married to Sarah Rafferty. His own record, though, is firmly rooted in finance and business.
He studied at Yale and Wharton, worked at Lazard and Cantillon, founded Kiitos Capital Management, and later moved into strategy at Staxxon.
His marriage has also been unusually long by celebrity standards. He and Rafferty married in 2001 and have raised two daughters while building very different careers.
For readers who searched his name after watching Suits, that is the fuller answer. Santtu is part of Sarah Rafferty’s family story, but he also has more than two decades of serious business experience behind his own name.
If you enjoy profiles about people with strong finance careers who are also connected to well-known public figures, read our Matt Danzeisen profile next on LakewoodScoop.co.uk.