The Swedish Government today appointed Ambassador Sven-Olof Petersson as the new Chairman of the SIPRI Governing Board. Ambassador Petersson will formally take up his position on 1 September 2014, and succeeds Göran Lennmarker, who stepped down earlier this year.
Sven-Olof Petersson's previous positions in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) include Director of the Minister's Office and Director-General for Political Affairs. He has served at the Swedish embassies in Algiers, Beirut, Dar es Salaam, Strasbourg and Washington, DC. He was Director General for Political Affairs when the late Anna Lindh was Sweden's Foreign Minister. He also held the post of Sweden's ambassador to the European Union between 2002 and 2008, and was Sweden's ambassador in Canberra, Australia, until early 2014.
Welcoming the appointment, SIPRI Director Dr Ian Anthony said, 'Sven-Olof Petersson is an accomplished diplomat and foreign affairs practitioner and will bring outstanding international contacts and expertise to this position. All of us at SIPRI look forward to working with him as leader of our distinguished Governing Board.'
According to the SIPRI statutes, the Chairman of the SIPRI Governing Board is appointed by the Swedish Government, based upon nominations from the SIPRI Governing Board, the SIPRI Research Staff Collegium and the SIPRI staff unions. The Chairman can serve for no more than two consecutive five-year terms.
In addition to Göran Lennmarker, Petersson's predecessors as SIPRI Chairman have been Rolf Ekèus, Daniel Tarchys, Inga Thorsson, Ernst Michanek, Rolf Björnerstedt, Karin Söder, Hans Blix, Rolf Edberg, Gunnar Myrdal and Alva Myrdal.
The current members of the SIPRI Governing Board are Jayantha Dhanapala (Deputy Chairman, Sri Lanka), Dewi Fortuna Anwar (Indonesia), Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria), Wolfgang Ischinger (Germany), Mary Kaldor (United Kingdom) and SIPRI Director Ian Anthony (United Kingdom).