The European Union Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is honored to have Her Excellency Karin Olofsdotter, Ambassador of Sweden to the United States, provide the keynote address for our 19th Annual European Union Day on Friday, February 26, 2021. Ambassador Olofsdotter's address will outline Sweden’s approach to gender equality; how generous childcare and gender-neutral parental leave have benefitted the GDP of Nordic countries; and why women’s equal access to rights, resources, and representation should be hard foreign policy concerns. In addition to exploring differences between gender equality policies in the European Union and the United States and lessons that we can draw from each other, Ambassador Olofsdotter's presentation will ask: what constitutes a feminist foreign policy?
Please register
here. For more information on the full EU Day 2021 schedule of events, please see
here.
About H.E. Karin Olofsdotter:
Her Excellency Karin Olofsdotter took up her post as Ambassador of Sweden to the United States on September 1, 2017. Ambassador Olofsdotter has long been a strong advocate for Swedish trade and diplomatic relations with the United States. Trade and economic growth remain top priorities for the Ambassador, along with defense cooperation, public diplomacy, and strong collaboration with the international community.
H.E. Olofsdotter brings extensive experience in trade promotion to her current post. Prior to assuming the role as Ambassador, she served as Director-General for Trade at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Olofsdotter has also held the position of Deputy Director-General and Head of the Department for Promotion of Sweden, Trade and CSR.
Ambassador Olofsdotter is also an accomplished diplomat. Her career in the Foreign Service started in 1994 with her first posting to the Embassy of Sweden in Moscow. In the years following, she worked in security policy and defense issues as well as in numerous leadership posts within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, including serving as Chief of Staff for several of its Ministers.
H.E. Olofsdotter has served as part of the Swedish delegation to NATO as well as at the Swedish EU Representation in Brussels, working with European security policy and defense issues. Ambassador Olofsdotter was appointed Director of the Ministers’ Office in Stockholm before being asked to serve as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC in 2008, a post she held for three years. In 2011, she entered her first ambassadorial position as Ambassador of Sweden to Hungary.
Ambassador Olofsdotter has a B.A. in psychology, economics and Russian. She studied at UCLA Anderson School of Management and speaks Russian, French and English. She is married and has a son and a daughter.