Arne Simonsen is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 civil servant.

He was born in Haugesund

Haugesund

is a town and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.-Location:Haugesund was separated from Torvastad as a town and municipality of its own in 1855. The rural municipality of Skåre was merged with Haugesund on January 1, 1958. Haugesund is a small municipality, only 73 km²...

, and graduated as cand.mag.

Cand.mag.

Candidatus magisterii , Candidata magisterii , i.e. Latin Candidate of Arts, abbreviated cand.mag., is an academic degree used in Denmark, and formerly in Norway and Iceland, roughly corresponding to an American Master of Arts and officially translated as such...

 from the University of Bergen

University of Bergen

The University of Bergen is located in Bergen, Norway. Although founded as late as 1946, academic activity had taken place at Bergen Museum as far back as 1825. The university today serves more than 14,500 students...

. He worked as a civil servant in Bergen municipality

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

, the Norwegian Central Information Service, the Ministry of Church and Education, and the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration. From September 1992 to June 1993 he was a political advisor for the Minister of Social Affairs in the third cabinet Brundtland

Third cabinet Brundtland

Brundtland's Third Cabinet was a minority, Labour Government of Norway. It succeeded the Conservative/Centre/Christian Democrat Cabinet Syse, and sat between 3 November 1990 and 24 October 1996. It was replaced by the Labour Cabinet Jagland. The cabinet was active during two parliaments, both...

.

In 1993 he was appointed director of the Norwegian Central Information Service (Statens Informasjonstjeneste), succeeding Odd Strand

Odd Strand

Odd Strand was a Norwegian civil servant.He was born in Aure, but grew up in Trondheim. During the German occupation of Norway he was a member of Milorg. He later studied at the University of Oslo, graduating as cand.philol...

 who had reached the age limit. The Norwegian Central Information Service no longer exists, as it was merged into Statskonsult

Statskonsult

Statskonsult AS is a defunct Norwegian government-owned company that provided management consulting services related to government restructuring and reform. It was created in 1947 as the Rationalisation Office , later the Directorate of Rationalisation. The name Statskonsult was taken into use in...

in 2001.