Anja Kaspersen is a director for Global Markets Development, Frontier and Critical Technologies (also referred to as New Frontiers and New Territories) at IEEE, a global charity and the world's largest technical professional organisation.^[54] She is a Senior Fellow and former co-director at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where she co-leads and launched the Artificial Intelligence Equality Initiative with Wendell Wallach.^[1,2,3,4] Supported by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and the IEEE, Kaspersen and Wallach, together with scholars and thinkers in technology governance, presented a Proposal for International Governance of AI with modalities for implementation.^[5,46] Kaspersen serves in her personal capacity as a member of Interpol's Standing Committee on Ethical Matters, and in 2025 she was appointed to the United Nations Multi-Stakeholder Working Group on Data Governance at All Levels. She is an Executive in Residence at the NYU Stern School of Business, a Special Advisor on Digital Technologies, Equity, Peace and Democracy at the Kofi Annan Foundation, and is affiliated with SWIFT Partners focusing on harnessing foresight to navigate knowns and unknowns in the field of AI.

Kaspersen is the former director of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in Geneva and Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament.^{[6,47,7,8,48,11,49]} Previously, she served as the head of strategic engagement and new technologies at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).^[12,50] Prior to joining the ICRC, she was a senior director for geopolitics and international security and a member of the executive committee at the World Economic Forum.^{[13,14,42,11,21]} Kaspersen has had a broad career spanning business, diplomacy, and academia, with connections to institutions such as IMD Business School, the London School of Economics, Harvard, Berkeley, the University of Oslo, the University of Trondheim, Stanford, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the EU, the United Nations, NUPI, and the Norwegian Ministry of Defence.

During her tenure as a Norwegian diplomat in the foreign service, Kaspersen worked on international security, integrated peace operations, and regional affairs, contributing to strengthening Norway's engagement with regional and multilateral institutions such as ASEAN.^[34] Norway was accepted as a Sectoral Dialogue Partner at the 48th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Kuala Lumpur in August 2015, becoming the first European state to enter into such a formalized partnership, which has since developed through practical cooperation areas, action plans, and regular political dialogue.^[32,35,36] Her work on peace operations, the rule of law, law enforcement, and civilian crisis management has been reflected in Norwegian policy papers examining multidimensional peacekeeping within the United Nations, integrated mission design, political coordination, civilian components, and legal frameworks in post-conflict environments.^[37]

She is a published author, podcast host, public speaker, and commentator on topics including geopolitics, national and international security, peacekeeping, arms control, multilateral diplomacy, emerging technology ethics, artificial intelligence, cyber conflicts, digital resilience, and ocean security.^{[19,20,15,12,18]} A firm believer in multilateralism and science and technology diplomacy, her work focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to international security, technology governance, arms control, responsible innovation, and international safeguards.^[21,51] Kaspersen has advocated drawing lessons from historical models of cooperative governance around sensitive technologies—highlighting institutions such as CERN, civil aviation frameworks, and the IAEA—and combines her technology, engineering, and science background to foster public and private sector cooperation in promoting safe, equitable, and responsible artificial intelligence. She is an alumni International Gender Champion, a member of the International Telecommunication Union's AI for Good Global Summit Programme Committee, a member of the IEEE Council on Extended Intelligence and Industry Activities on Ethics in Action in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, the Well-Being Initiative, Life Science Innovation and AI, a member of the Council of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, and a member of the advisory board of ThinkTech.^{[28,22,23,24,26,27,52]}

Kaspersen has received recognition for her work in intelligence ethics, technology policy, and interdisciplinary approaches to governance, and is known as a passionate advocate for women, diversity, and interdisciplinarity. Selected for several consecutive years as a leading female voice in AI and ethics, she was included in the '100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics' list in 2019 and 2020.^[29,37,38] In 2020, she was chosen as one of the world's top 50 innovators by World Summit AI and Inspired Minds, and in 2024 she was named to Abelia's list of Norway's Top 50 Tech Women.^[38,53]

Kaspersen attended the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and obtained a Master of Science degree. In 2017, she entered the Executive Programme at IMD Business School.^[39]

Anja Kaspersen and Wendell Wallach co-authored "A Framework for the International Governance of AI" as well as "Now is the Moment for a Systemic Reset of AI and Technology Governance" (AI Governance Framework) for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs' Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative (AIEI).^[40,44] Kaspersen also authored "Ethics and Fairness in AI: Who Makes the Rules" and co-authored "Seven Myths of Using the Term “Human on the Loop”: “Just What Do You Think You Are Doing, Dave?”" with Kobi Leins for the Carnegie Council's AIEI. With Wallach, Kaspersen published "We’re failing at the ethics of AI. Here's how we make real impact" for the World Economic Forum. Her works within the Working Papers from NUPI's UN Programme include "Transition Management" in «Challenges to Collective Security» and "The United Nations and Civilian Crisis Management", co-authored with Ole Jacob Sending.