Jon Mørland, Managing Director of Mørland & Johnson, is advisor to and spokesman for Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Inquiries to Mrs. Brundtland should be directed at jm@morlandjohnsen.no or by calling +47 90 77 02 06

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Few Norwegians have had such an impact on their era as Gro Harlem Brundtland. Brundtland has held various public offices in Norway, including ten years as the Prime Minister. She has been head of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Mrs. Brundtland also spent 10 years as a physician and researcher in the Norwegian health care system.

At the age of seven, Gro Harlem Brundtland enrolled in the children’s section of the Norwegian Labour Movement and she has been a member of the Labour party ever since. As a young mother and newly qualified medical doctor, Brundtland received a scholarship to study at the Harvard School of Public Health. At Harvard, she obtained a Master of Public Health (MPH).

In the following decade, Gro Harlem Brundtland returned to Oslo and the Ministry of Health, where she was assistant chief physician for health services for Oslo schoolchildren. She was appointed Minister of the environment in 1974.

In 1980, at the age of 41, Gro Harlem Brundtland was elected Prime Minister of Norway for the first time – thus becoming both the youngest and the first female Prime Minister of Norway. Brundtland served for more than 10 years as Prime Minister, over three terms from 1980-1996.

In the 1980s, Brundtland received international recognition for her fight for the principle of sustainable development, as head of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission). The work on the Commission culminated with the publishing of the report “Our Common Future” in 1987.

In 1998, Brundtland was appointed Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), a position she held for five years, until her retirement in 2003.

Since then, Brundtland has served on the board of the UN Foundation and as a member of the organisation The Elders, in addition to being a Health Policy Fellow at Harvard University. She has also been a member of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, appointed by the Secretary-General of the UN. In March 2007, she was appointed Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on climate change. Brundtland is also a member of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.