Bodil Nyboe Andersen, Denmark’s First Woman Central Bank Governor, Dies at 85

(Bloomberg) -- Bodil Nyboe Andersen, Denmark’s first female central bank governor, has died.

She passed away Thursday at the age of 85, her two sons told Danish newswire Ritzau.

Nyboe Andersen was governor of Nationalbanken from 1990 to 2005, making her one of the first women in the world to head a central bank. She described her term as “some of the most dramatic years” in Danish monetary policy, including defending the fixed exchange rate policy in 1992 and 1993 and handling a banking crisis. 

She has been praised for exhibiting rigorous logic and pedagogical clarity in the role at Nationalbanken, skills she acquired through her years in academia. As a trailblazer in Denmark’s financial industry, Nyboe Andersen typically had few or no female colleagues, but she never considered this an issue. 

“I have led a life as a woman in a distinctly male world, and often on men’s terms, but it has not been a problem for me,” she said in a 2019 speech.

Nyboe Andersen was born Oct. 9, 1940, as the daughter of a late politician and a teacher. She was the eldest of four siblings.

Nyboe Andersen graduated with a master’s degree in economics from the University of Copenhagen in 1966. During her early career, she worked as an economist for the Danish Economic Secretariat, then as a university lecturer.

In 1981, Nyboe Andersen joined the executive team at Andelsbanken, a Danish lender which later became part of Nordic giant Nordea Bank Abp. In an interview with Kristeligt Dagblad, she described the move from academia to banking as something that took great courage, as she would enter a more formal and hierarchical world. The fact that Nyboe Andersen cycled to work was — at the time — unheard of and something that colleagues would make jokes about.

In what she has described as her “dream job,” Nyboe Andersen joined the Danish central bank in 1990, first as a deputy governor, and five years later succeeding Erik Hoffmeyer as the head of the bank.

She retired at 65 in 2005, and since took on a number of board positions, including at the Danish Red Cross and the University of Copenhagen.

Nyboe Andersen was often asked how it felt to be the first female central bank governor in the Nordic country. “That has always struck me as a rather silly question,” she said in 2019. “I would have been just as happy with the job if one of the predecessors had been a woman. It’s the job that’s important.”

Nyboe Andersen had two sons with the late Henning Holten, whom she divorced in 1985.

--With assistance from Sam Hall.

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