Profiles

Bo Viktor Nylund is a humanitarian and development practitioner who has served the most vulnerable children and families in different parts of the world throughout his career. In October 2022, he was appointed Director of UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight in Florence (Italy). In this role, he leads a diverse team of professionals in tackling the questions of greatest importance for children. Under his direction, UNICEF Innocenti drives change through research and foresight on a wide range of child rights issues, sparking global discourse and actively engaging young people in its work. Prior to this role, Bo Viktor served as UNICEF’s Representative in Syria (2020–2022), leading programmes and operations reaching nearly 12 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. He lead a team of about 300 staff, managing an annual budget of US$220 million. In Syria, he used advocacy work to open new and unprecedented opportunities in child protection, education, health, nutrition, social protection as well as water and sanitation with both the Government and non-state actors. Bo Viktor joined the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1998 and has worked – in Bangkok, Bujumbura, Colombo, Damascus, Geneva, Khartoum, Nairobi and New York – in the areas of senior management, child protection, corporate social responsibility, humanitarian policy and planning, and children’s rights. In 2010, he also supported the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the development of an office-wide strategy for engagement in humanitarian action. And from 1994 to 1996, he worked as a protection officer with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva and Kenya/Somalia. Bo Viktor has master’s degrees in law and political science from Columbia University Law School and Abo Akademi University and a PhD in international law from the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies. He is a national of Finland and, in addition to Finnish, Swedish and English, he also speaks French and German.