Barents Profile - Tomas Hallberg

Tomas Hallberg from Sweden will start his post as the head of the International Barents Secretariat in the middle of January 2015. He will succeed Ari Sirén from Finland, whose three-year term will come to its end.

Tomas Hallberg was born in a small village in the South of Sweden, but during his career he has been living and working internationally. Altogether 10 years of his life he has been living in Russia. For example, in the 90’s he was the representative of the Nordic countries in the Consulate of Saint Petersburg. During the past years he has been working as a counselor of the economic department in the Swedish Embassy in Moscow promoting Swedish companies and developing environmentally friendly technologies for businesses.

In addition, Hallberg has worked as the director of NGO European cities against drugs, which has 250 members from about 30 countries. He remembers that the Nordic countries were very active in the organization and there were successful projects, for instance, drug prevention programs.

The new IBS boss is not afraid to express his opinions and raise a discussion. Sharing his own experience from the previous contexts for the new environment can bring out new proposals, which have not been thought about yet. Hallberg is looking forward to everyday connection with locals. He highly appreciates people to people communication which he sees very fortunate to be possible in Kirkenes.

Main tasks and challenges on IBS

Hallberg hesitates to list the challenges before he gets acquainted with his work on a daily basis. He would gladly try to make IBS better known. The other thing he mentions is to attract Barents people to get involved.

From his last job he wants to continue working with sustainable development and keeping up developing the environmentally friendly principles throughout IBS in his work.

Hallberg about Barents

Hallberg has not been living in the Barents area, but sees that as an advantage. It is good to bring in some fresh new perspectives. In addition, coming from outside can make it easier to explain to the people not living in the Barents region what Barents and Barents cooperation are all about.

All of the Barents countries are equal and have facilitated cooperation and working groups. Hallberg highlights that Russia is an important country in this area. Between the Nordic countries we have a long and strong cooperation and we have to keep up the good work including Russia to this tradition. Hallberg, as the head of IBS, wants to build bridges between Russia and the Nordic countries.

Introducing the new head of the International Barents Secretariat, starting from the middle of January 2015

Tomas Hallberg from Sweden

Greetings for the BarentSaga readers

Whether it is working, running or hunting “I’m looking forward to meeting you”, says Hallberg cheerfully.

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