Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir

Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir is the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Ingibjörg was a politician for 25 years. She served as Mayor of Reykjavik from 1994 to 2003, Member of Parliament for 7 years and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2009.  Before taking up the position of ODIHR Director, she served as Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia at UN Women and Country Representative to Turkey. She also served as Country Representative of UN Women to Afghanistan.

Throughout Ingibjörg’s career, she has been involved in policy and development working in both conflict and non-conflict countries aiming to strengthen democratic institutions and human rights. In 1982, the early years of her political career, Ingibjörg was one of the founders of the Women’s Party, laying the ground for Iceland’s remarkable progress in gender equality.

Ingibjörg studied history and literature at the University of Iceland and then at the University of Copenhagen, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the European Institute of the London School of Economics.