Espen Rikter‐Svendsen is a Norwegian career diplomat who entered the Foreign Service in 1990. He was accredited as Norway’s Ambassador to Bangladesh on 23 September, 2020.
Espen has spent more than half his his career on postings, mainly in Europe (Brussels, Paris and Rome) and Asia (New Delhi, Hanoi, Guangzhou and Dhaka). Before coming to Dhaka his last foreign posting was that of Consul General in Guangzhou, China, where he served from 2012 to 2017. Moreover he has done shorter stints at Norway’s Embassies in Tehran and Seoul, as well as serving for two years as Special Envoy to Haiti, following the 2010 earthquake.
During his periods in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he has worked extensively on Asian issues (China, South Asia), besides doing information and communication work. An interesting year was spent in the Protocol department preparing a State Visit to China. From 2018 to 2020 he was Norway’s ASEM (Asia Europe Meeting) Senior Official.
Espen holds a professional Law Degree (Cand. Jur.) from the University of Oslo, as well as an LLM from the University of London, Queen Mary College. Before joining the Foreign Service he worked for five years as a legal consultant in a Norwegian tech company.
In addition to his mother tongue Espen can make himself understood in English, French, Italian and German, besides possessing some skills in Vietnamese.
He has a son (24) and a daughter (22), both of whom are studying abroad (Canada and the UK). Espen a keen amateur photographer, in particular on one of his Nikon mirrorless cameras. He likes to play the piano, especially late at night when nobody else is around.
