Thomas Froyland

Biography

Thomas Froyland is Chief Strategy Officer at NORDUnet, the digital infrastructure partnership between the five Nordic countries. In this role, he also oversees Polar Connect, an EU funded initiative to establish a resilient, high-capacity digital backbone through the Central Arctic Ocean, providing secure and sovereign connectivity between Europe, North America and East Asia.

Thomas has 20 years of policy experience from the public, private and non-profit sectors. After interning as a speechwriter for former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he served for several years as a career civil servant at the United Nations Secretariat. In the UN’s Policy Planning Unit, he led international peacebuilding and counter-terrorism initiatives and served as Secretary of the UN’s Executive Committee on Peace and Security.

At renewable energy major Orsted, Thomas held senior public affairs roles in Europe and North America, and led the company’s engagement with local communities across its global project portfolio. He most recently served as Global Head of Stakeholder Relations at the global engineering firm Ramboll, where he built and led the company’s function for public affairs, partnerships and thought leadership, with a focus on critical infrastructure, the green transition and shaping resilient societies.

Thomas has consulted extensively for governments, multinational corporations and think tanks on geopolitics and crisis management. He previously served as Director of International Affairs at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, and taught public diplomacy at Chapman University.

He holds a master’s degree in European Affairs from Sciences Po Paris.