INLUS Webinar – Consul General Vilhjalmur Wiium

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A Conversation with the Consul General of North America

What does a Consul General of North America do?  How does this job differ from an Ambassador?  Let’s find out together!  Consul General Vilhjalmur Wiium will join us on Monday, November 21 at 8:00 PM Eastern to introduce himself and share his plans.  He assumed his new position in May 2022.  The primary role of the Consul General is to support, strengthen and nurture relations between Iceland and people of Icelandic descent in North America.  While his predecessors have primarily focused on interacting with Icelanders in Canada, Vilhjalmur wants to meet and learn about the Icelanders across North America.

Vilhjálmur has over 20 years’ experience of working in Iceland’s foreign service, initially for the Icelandic International Development Agency and from 2016 for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Prior to arriving in Winnipeg, he was Permanent Representative of Iceland at the United Nations Environment Programme and before that Director of Bilateral Development Cooperation.

Most of Vilhjálmur’s diplomatic career has been in international development cooperation. He was Head of Mission at Iceland’s embassies in Mozambique, Malawi, and Namibia for a total of 16 years. In addition to his diplomatic career, Vilhjálmur was Lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Assistant Professor at Reykjavik University in Iceland. He took part in several consultancies in Africa in the field of fisheries policy and management.

Vilhjálmur was born in 1964. He holds degrees in Economics (MA and PhD) from Simon Fraser University in Canada, and B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Iceland. He is married to Guðlaug Erlendsdóttir, Assistant Principal at Grindavík Elementary School and PhD student in Education at the University of Iceland. They have three children.

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