Mr. Per Heggenes
Special Advisor, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Mr. Per Heggenes was appointed as Chair of the ODI Global Advisory Board in January 2024.
He is the former CEO of the IKEA Foundation, where he sat and drove the Foundation’s funding and innovation strategies for the first 15 years. Since becoming the Foundation’s first CEO in 2009, he presided over the Foundation’s evolution into a global, grant-making philanthropy that funds programmes in more than 45 countries.
Per was also selected a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. He serves on numerous advisory boards for humanitarian and development organisations and has taken a special interest in helping reform the way the global community works to embrace rights and opportunities for forcibly displaced people – aimed at positive integration that leads to economic independence and self-reliance.
Previously, Per held global and regional leadership roles for the shipping and logistics company Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics and global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, based in London and New York.
He graduated from the University of Augsburg in Germany with a “Diplom Oekonom” and has served in the Norwegian Air Force.