Nína Björk Jónsdóttir new Director General of GRÓ
Nína Björk Jónsdóttir has taken over as Director General for GRÓ, Centre for Capacity Development, Sustainability and Societal Change. She succeeds Friðrik Jónsson who was elected President of the Icelandic Confederation of University Graduates (BHM) on 27 May.
Ms. Jónsdóttir has been working for the Icelandic Foreign Service since 2005. Over the last two years she has been the Director for Business Services at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. From 2016-2019 she acted as Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of Iceland to EFTA, the WTO, UNOG and other international organisations in Geneva. She was posted to the Embassy of Iceland in Paris from 2012-2016, where she acted as Deputy Head of Mission (from 2013), Deputy Permanent Representative to the OECD, and from 2014 also to UNESCO and the Council of Europe. During the years 2009-2011 Ms. Jónsdóttir worked in the Directorate for International affairs, particularly on climate change and gender. In 2005-2008 she worked on external trade, in particular on the running of the EEA Agreement.
Before joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Jónsdóttir worked as a TV and Radio reporter for Stöð 2 and Bylgjan in 2000-2001 and journalist for Morgunblaðið National Newspaper from 2001-2004. She worked as a media officer for Concordia, the EU’s first peace keeping operation in North-Macedonia for 9 months in the year 2003 on behalf of the Icelandic Crisis Response Unit.
Ms. Jónsdóttir holds an MA in International Politics and Security Studies from Bradford University, as well as a Post-graduate diploma in Journalism and a BA in French and Political Science from the University of Iceland. Ms. Jónsdóttir is the author of Íslandsdætur (Daughters of Iceland) a book for children and young adults published by Salka in 2020 and one of two authors of the book How to Live Icelandic that will be published by White Lion Publishing in late 2021.