Bård Vegar Solhjell is director general of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, or Norad. He is deputy chair of the Fritt Ord (Free Word) Foundation, and a board member of Norway’s second-biggest renewable energy company, Hafslund. He was a member of the Norwegian Parliament from 2009 to 2017, minister of education from 2007 to 2009, minister of the environment from 2012 to 2013 and a state secretary for prime minister Jens Stoltenberg from 2005 to 2007.