Bodil Nyboe Andersen, Denmark’s First Woman Central Bank Governor, Dies at 85
(Bloomberg) — Denmark’s first female central bank governor, Bodil Nyboe Andersen, has died.
He died on Thursday at the age of 85, his two sons told Danish news outlet Ritzau.
Nyboe Andersen served as governor of Nationalbanken from 1990 to 2005, making her one of the first women in the world to become a central bank governor. He described his period as “one of the most dramatic years” in Danish monetary policy, including the defense of a fixed exchange rate policy and the handling of a banking crisis in 1992 and 1993.
He was praised for demonstrating rigorous logic and pedagogical clarity in his role at Nationalbanken, and for the skills he acquired during his years in academia. Nyboe Andersen, a pioneer in Denmark’s financial industry, often had few or no female colleagues, but she never saw this as a problem.
“As a woman, I have lived a life in a distinctly masculine world and often on men’s terms, but that was okay with me,” she said in a 2019 speech.
Nyboe Andersen was born on October 9, 1940, the daughter of a late politician and teacher. He was the eldest of four siblings.
Nyboe Andersen graduated from the University of Copenhagen with a master’s degree in economics in 1966. In the early years of his career, he worked as an economist at the Danish Economic Secretariat and then as a university lecturer.
In 1981, Nyboe Andersen joined the management team of Andelsbanken, a Danish lender that later became part of the Scandinavian giant Nordea Bank Abp. In an interview with Dagblad, Kristeligt stated that the transition from academia to banking was something that required great courage, as it would be stepping into a more formal and hierarchical world. The fact that Nyboe Andersen biked to work was unheard of at the time and something his colleagues would joke about.
In what he describes as his “dream job”, Nyboe Andersen joined the Danish central bank in 1990, first as deputy governor and five years later as the bank’s president, succeeding Erik Hoffmeyer.
He retired in 2005 at the age of 65 and has since held various board positions, including at the Danish Red Cross and the University of Copenhagen.
Nyboe Andersen is often asked how it feels to be the first female central bank governor in the Scandinavian country. “That always seemed like a pretty stupid question to me,” he said in 2019. “I would be just as happy with this job if one of my predecessors had been a woman. It’s the work that matters.”
Nyboe Andersen had two sons from Henning Holten, whom she divorced in 1985.
–With help from Sam Hall.
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