Mr. Magnus, aged 65 and with a M.A. degree in Law, has served in the Norwegian Foreign Service for 36 years. The new ambassador designate arrived directly from his previous post as ambassador to Spain, where he has spent the past four years.
Mr. Magnus has previously also held the post as ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s and as ambassador to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris from 1998 to 2001. Additionally, he was assigned as Permanent Representative to the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.
While in Norway, he has twice served as deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1992 – 1996, 2001 – 2006). In that capacity, he held the function as Chief Negotiator at the Johannesburg Summit on sustainable development in 2002.
The new ambassador is replacing Ambassador Elisabeth Jakobsen who has returned to Norway to take up a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as Director for the section for Southern, Central and Western Africa.