Bárður á Steig Nielsen (; born 16 April 1972) is a Faroese politician and businessman who serves as leader of the Union Party since 2015 and was

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

from 2019 to 2022. He is also goalkeeper of the VÍF Vestmanna handball team and a former handball player of the Faroe Islands national team.

Education and business career

Bárður á Steig Nielsen has finished the first part of a Danish HD education in Management accounting from Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences and has taken some of the subjects of the ''Merkonom'' education from Føroya Handilsskúli. He started his business career as an employee in the accountancy firm ''Rasmussen og Weihe'' in

Tórshavn Tórshavn (; lit. "Thor's harbour"), usually locally referred to as simply ''Havn'', is the capital and largest city of the Faroe Islands. It is located in the southern part on the east coast of Streymoy. To the northwest of the city lies the ...

1993–2000. From 2001 to 2004 he was employed as the chief Accountant at the Kollafjord Pelagic in Kollafjørður. In 2007 he left his position as the Finance Minister of the Faroe Islands in order to become the general manager of the large scale building project SMI Stóratjørn in Hoyvík, planned by Icelandic business people. The project was never implemented because of the

financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline o ...

; á Steig Nielsen was employed there until February 2009. In 2009–2010 he was the general manager of a machine shop in Hoyvík 2009–2010. From 2010 he was the CFO of the

telephone company A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...

Vodafone Føroyar in Tórshavn. He has been a board member of the

Vágar Airport Vágar Airport ( fo, Vága Floghavn) is the only airport in the Faroe Islands, and is located east of the village of Sørvágur, on the island of Vágar. Due to the Faroe Islands' status as a self-governing territory, the airport is not subje ...

, Kollafjord Pelagic and of a few other trading companies in Tórshavn.

Political career

Bárður á Steig Nielsen was elected to the Faroese parliament representing Norðurstreymoy in the periods of 2002–2004 and 2004–2008. He was the finance minister in the first cabinet of Jóannes Eidesgaard from 2004, but left the position in order to become the leader of the Stóra Tjørn building project, which was later cancelled because of the financial crisis. In the

2011 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2011. * Local electoral calendar 2011 * National electoral calendar 2011 * 2011 United Nations Security Council election Africa * 2011 Beninese presidential election * 2011 Beninese parliamentary el ...

, he was re-elected for the Løgting. In March 2015, he was elected vice chairman of his party and on 24 October 2015, he was elected as the chairman of the Union Party. He was reelected to the Faroese parliament at the 2022 elections.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nielsen, Bardur a Steig 1972 births Living people People from Vestmanna Municipality Union Party (Faroe Islands) politicians Members of the Løgting Faroese sportsperson-politicians Faroese male handball players