Iceland Prime Minister and Boston University Alum Advises Next Generation of Leaders
Iceland’s Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir (GRS’14) received a 2026 Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award in a ceremony at the BU Castle on September 24.
“Empathy Will Get You Really Far,” Iceland Prime Minister and Boston University Alum Advises Next Generation of Leaders
Kristrún Frostadóttir, on campus to receive a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award, reflects on her meteoric rise and the lessons she learned at BU
When Kristrún Frostadóttir left Boston University in 2014, she had a master’s degree in economics and an intent to enter the world of banking and finance. More than a decade later, she returned to the University not as a banker but as prime minister of Iceland.
Frostadóttir (GRS’14) was recently back on campus to receive a 2026 Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award, an acknowledgement of her meteoric rise and impact on Icelandic and global politics and “the inspiring way in which she brings the arts and sciences alive through her work,” Stan Sclaroff, dean of Arts & Sciences, said during the award ceremony on September 24. Prior to receiving the award, Frostadóttir took part in a fireside chat with Bart Lipman, CAS professor of economics and associate dean of the faculty for the mathematical and computational sciences.
Frostadóttir kicked off her career in banking a few years after the 2008 financial crisis, working at the Central Bank of Iceland and later at Morgan Stanley before becoming chief economist for the Iceland Chamber of Commerce in 2017. Next came a stint as an economics lecturer at the University of Iceland and as a reporter for the Icelandic business newspaper Viðskiptablaðið. In 2021, she entered politics as a member of the Althing, Iceland’s parliament. Within a year, she became the leader of her party, the center-left Social Democratic Alliance, and, in 2024, was elected prime minister—the youngest prime minister in the country’s history.
Bostonia sat down with Frostadóttir after the ceremony to talk about how she has embraced those twists and turns, how the lessons she learned at BU continue to guide her today, how her age is an asset as a leader, and how her country is navigating the complex questions posed by AI.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q&A
With Kristrún Frostadóttir
Bostonia: What drew you to economics initially, and what drew you here to BU to study it?
Frostadóttir: I’ve always been interested in society when it comes to large problems. I never thought when I was younger that I would necessarily become a finance person or go into economics. I didn’t really know what it was growing up. Nobody around me did anything like this. But when I finished high school and went into economics [during university] back home in Iceland, I first registered for political science because that’s what I thought I wanted to do.
But I was pretty good at mathematics at the time. I knew I could bring that strength into the [economics] program, and it allowed me also to apply more modeling techniques to real-world problems. So it was the social aspect but also just my background at the time.
I was obviously very impacted when I first started economics, because there was a big financial crisis in Iceland in 2008. All the discussions in the news and the media, it all revolved around this. During my studies, it pushed me to want to do economics in a different way because we felt like the system had just not worked. That led me to pursue a graduate degree. I wanted to do more, I wanted to do more in international macro[economics]. I was interested in crises and in policy, and BU is a great school. So it was a mix of personal [factors], but also it’s just a really great program here.
Bostonia: What lessons did you learn through the program at BU, and how did those carry over into the work you do today?
Frostadóttir: At the time when you’re going through that, it’s very heavy academically, but it’s also very structured and very analytical and you might not be able to always tie it to what’s going on around you. This type of rigor and framework and structure has really helped my mindset.
I did another degree at Yale later on and then I went into politics. But having the anchor that that academic rigor gave me, it really helped me because you have to be able to think outside the box. If you want to be a good economist, if you want to be a good politician, if you want to be a good leader, you have to be able to understand that there’s a human spectrum that models don’t always pick up on. But you also have to have your feet on the ground when the world is really turning. This type of analytical framework that I got here was probably the biggest thing that I take away with me.
Bostonia: How has your experience as an economist been an asset for you as a politician and world leader?
Frostadóttir: It might not always be the most popular thing to talk about balanced budgets, inflation, interest rates. Especially in today’s world of pop politics which tends to be a bit more polarized, people might feel like it’s a mundane thing. But people really appreciate politicians and leaders that can take care of basic things in society. Even though you need to have strong ideals and values, people also just want to feel like you can balance the budget, you can do things properly.
I do think having this background has given me credibility in politics, but it’s not enough. There’s a human factor as well that you always have to think about. Nurturing that communications skill set is just as important as having the analytical framework because, especially if you’re a leader, you need to be able to explain to people your way of thinking. That is an additional skill set that I definitely developed here.
Bostonia: The US and other countries are experiencing a generational shift in leadership right now, with younger people stepping into politics. Do you feel as though your age has given you a different perspective on certain issues facing your country?
Societies go through cycles of lack of trust, lack of credibility. We definitely went through that in Iceland during the financial crisis, and the years after 2008 were very difficult for politics. We had a very fractured political system, and there was a youth wing of my party, the Social Democratic party, that almost just left and gave up because they felt like everything they’d been working on up until then had disappeared from under their feet.
I definitely am part of a new generation that’s not tied to [financial] crisis–related politics. But it’s also helped me personally that I am young and I’m at an age where there’s a lot of stuff going on in my head.
If you’re a young woman, especially in your 30s, a lot of people discount this age because women have children. This is probably the strongest time for you to do anything, because you have a little bit of experience but you’re also open to new ideas. I had a one-year-old when I became prime minister and a 5-year-old; today they’re 3 and 7. This is not an easy thing to do, but it’s also one of my superpowers, because I have small kids waiting for me when I come back home. They don’t care who I am. They don’t care what I do. They keep me grounded, and I also participate in their daily lives, trying to pick them up at school, being with parents in the neighborhood. It gives me an additional human side.
So there’s a lot of strengths when it comes to young people and politics if they have a little bit of experience that I think is often discounted just because of family structures really.
Bostonia: One of the most pressing issues facing governments around the world today is AI and a technology that is rapidly outpacing regulations and safety guardrails. How do you approach the questions around AI and its applications?
I know it’s a technical matter and it’s a productivity matter, but for me, it’s a welfare matter.
We need to make sure that the way AI is impacting us isn’t completely taking over our lives. There’s a great part about it, but I am mostly worried about our young kids, that they go through a period of their lives where they don’t learn to think for themselves. Because that’s probably the most important thing about being a human being: critical thinking. If you bring AI into the classroom at too early an age, they never develop that capacity to ask the right questions and to understand whether the answer that they’re getting is actually based on something real or not.
I could give you a lot of technical answers on sovereign AI, what kind of legislation you need, but I also think society just needs a mindshift change. We need to protect our children from AI at the early levels, give them critical thinking, and then use this as a tool more in younger adulthood.
Remember that a good leader is a good human being, a person that tries to understand where people are coming from. It’s good to be smart, but at the end of the day empathy will get you really far.
Bostonia: What advice do you have for the next generation, including the next generation of leaders?
In general, it’s hard to plan out the pathway that you end up in. I was a very conscientious student, I always wanted things planned, I thought I had my life set out when I initially came here. And some of the biggest and most important decisions I made were deciding to either shift course, do something new, take a new job, leave my job, go do something else.
Go with your gut. If you have the privilege to make choices, you should use it. You shouldn’t be afraid to change your opinion on things. And chances are, if you become a leader—whether it’s in a company or an academic institution or a country—if you have a diverse set of experiences in different parts of the world or country or with different groups, you’ll be a much better leader. You’ll do your job better. Having just stayed in one angle of the world is always going to make it more difficult for you to connect with people.
I know it’s very general advice, but it’s important. Do things well, apply yourself, but don’t be overly stringent about changing your plans.
Remember that a good leader is a good human being, a person that tries to understand where people are coming from. It’s good to be smart, but at the end of the day empathy will get you really far.