​Norway’s central bank flooded with male applicants for SWF chief job

Norway’s central bank has received nearly 10 times as many applicants for the top job at the country’s NOK20.2trn (€1.7trn) sovereign wealth fund as last time around, but only one of the individuals vying to replace Nicolai Tangen is identified as female.

Tangen, chief executive officer since 2020 of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), manager of the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), made it known back in November that he would apply for a second five-year term.

The position was officially advertised last month with a deadline of 16 February, and Norges Bank has now published the list of applicants.

It numbers 82 applicants – with 80 identified as male and just one as female.

Asked to comment on the fact so few women had applied for the job, a spokesman for Norges Bank told IPE: “We would like to see a more even gender distribution.”

“Our goal is a minimum of 40% of each gender, both in total in the bank and among managers and specialists,” he said.

“We are not at the target, but we see a positive development, and have implemented a number of measures that we hope can improve the gender balance over time,” he said.

The list is also notable for the sheer number of people putting themselves forward for the NBIM CEO role, a volume which has increased nearly 10-fold from 2020 when the post was last advertised. Back then, there were just eight applicants on the list published on 25 February 2020, with Tangen being included later on.

Norges Bank’s spokesman said it was difficult to speculate on the reasons for the surge in applications since 2020, as the bank had followed more or less the same procedure as last time.

Since replacing the previous CEO, Yngve Slyngstad, who had a more reserved personal style of communication, Tangen has been a particularly active public communicator, using social media extensively and establishing a lively podcast series.

NBIM has reportedly received higher volumes of job applications generally since he became CEO.

Tangen came in for criticism recently after text messages exchanged between him and Elon Musk were made public, prompting the NBIM leader to say he needed to be more formal in the way he communicated.

The list appears to include no current top staff at NBIM who might present an obvious challenge to Tangen’s bid for re-employment, in contrast with the situation in 2020, when deputy CEO Trond Grande put his name forward to succeed Slyngstad.

However, it does include applicants such as former state secretary at the Ministry of Finance Erlend Grimstad, and Jacob Bjorheim, a lecturer at the University of Basel’s business and economics faculty and UBS board member.

The list also includes the leader of Greenpeace in Norway, Frode Pleym, and comedian and radio producer Markus Vangen.

Norges Bank’s executive board, with the help of the recruitment agency Spencer Stuart, will now assess the applicants against the competence requirements for the position, according to the bank’s spokesman.

“Then, some candidates will be called for interviews with the hiring committee and the recruitment agency,” he said, adding: “The executive board will take the time necessary to ensure that the right candidate is selected.”

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