DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

Jon of All Trades

Husband of Icelandic Ambassador Becomes Career Chameleon for His Wife • BY GAIL SCOTT

on Oskar Solnes can certainly be described as a jack of all trades. He has been a television sportscaster; foreign news editor; press and information o cer; a bank research editor; a chief of sta for a peacekeeping monitoring mission in Sri Lanka; a humanitarian aid manager for landmine victims in northern Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina; permanent delegate for a confederation of Icelandic employers analyzing EU socioeconomic and  nancial regulation; senior advisor for media analysis at two of NATO’s highest organizations; a consultant; and a two-time author.

But perhaps his most important role has been as a supportive husband to his wife Bergdís Ellertsdóttir, Iceland’s recently appointed ambassador to the U.S.

“I’ve tried to be  exible, to help myself and  nd my own way,” Solnes, 57, told us.

“When my wife was  rst sent abroad to Bonn, I thought I’ll try it, so I gave up my broadcasting job, which I loved,” he said of adjusting his career to accommodate his wife’s and the needs of their growing family.  at included taking on another job: stayat-home dad — or, as he calls it, “Mr. Mom.” “Our  rst daughter was only one and a half then [in Bonn] and I thought I could help. Our second daughter came shortly therea er.  ere was a period in Bonn when I took the baby down to the embassy two or three times a day so my wife could breastfeed her,” Solnes recalled.

 e couple also eventually had two boys. In between his parenting duties, Solnes earned a master’s in management and  - nance from Boston University (in association with the Free University of Brussels) and a master’s-level diploma in  nancial strategy from the University of Oxford. Today, the girls, Salvö and Katla, are in their 20s while the boys, Hjalti and Sturla, are teenagers.

“We had two girls  rst and then, 10 years later, two boys. I found that bringing up girls was totally di erent than bringing up boys. One thing that is especially nice about the boys is that we have more sports in common. I am a skier and so are they, but I wonder this winter if they’re going to out-ski me at Snowshoe,” he said, referring to the popular ski mountain resort town in West Virginia.

Solnes had been a well-known TV sportscaster in Iceland covering international events as the Seoul Summer Olympics in 1988 and the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy for Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (known as RÚV).  en he became the network’s foreign news editor, traveling abroad to cover major con ict areas as the former Yugoslavia and Somalia.

Next, he became a research editor for a major Icelandic bank, writing English language information bulletins for international subscribers and investors. “But I didn’t like the bank that much…. It wasn’t exciting. All anyone talked about, thought about, was money,” he said. “ is was before the economic crash.”

 e subject of money was then on everyone’s minds in 2008, when Iceland experienced a crippling  nancial crisis in which three of the country’s major privately owned banks defaulted, leading to a severe economic depression that lasted for several years.

Since then, however, the country has managed an impressive recovery, with steady economic growth fueled in part by a major increase in tourism.

In fact, part of Iceland’s economic prosperity owes to its progressive social policies on gender equality, which has led to greater participation of women in the workforce — including the political sphere, with women comprising half of parliament.

 e Icelandic ambassador’s own diverse diplomatic career is emblematic of how advanced this nation of just over 350,000 people is when it comes to women’s rights. Among her various postings, Ellertsdóttir has served as ambassador to the European Union and to the United Nations; foreign a airs advisor to the J

Jon Oskar Solnes, a well-known television sportscaster in Iceland, adjusted his career when his wife began being posted abroad, working at various points of his life for a peacekeeping monitoring mission in Sri Lanka and as a humanitarian aid manager for landmine victims in northern Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It’s a shock to the system to come from a dangerous yet exciting environment where you hope you’re making a difference in comparison to being Mr. Mom, where you’re hoping to make an even bigger difference. JON OSKAR SOLNES sportscaster, editor, humanitarian aid worker, chief of staff, spokesperson, author and consultant “

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prime minister; chief negotiator for the Iceland-China Free Trade Agreement; and deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign A airs Political Department dealing with security issues, NATO and bilateral relations with the U.S., Canada and Russia.

While Solnes’s various career moves have also given him a range of experiences, he’s frank about the sacri ces he’s had to make to follow his wife.

“I took a great risk in resigning from the television job I loved. I went from being known all over Iceland to hardly ever being known and only recognized as the husband of my wife,” he said.

A couple of times in their 25-year marriage, however, he did leave the family home because he was recruited to work in con ict areas and warzones, although not for extended tours.

“I think I wanted to challenge myself again,” Solnes said. So he accepted an invitation to become communications director and chief spokesperson for the European Union’s Police Mission in Sarajevo, where he was directly in charge of 16 sta ers from some of the 30 contributing countries helping to oversee the security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and restructure the police forces.

“ e war was over, leaving scarred and burnt buildings all over the city, but Sarajevo would maybe not be called a real hardship post,” he said. “We had a small, private and wonderful Christmas there with my wife and two daughters.”