Trygve Olson serves as Managing Director of Mercury Public Affairs in the Washington, DC office.
For the past twenty-years, Trygve has provided political strategy and counsel for public affairs campaigns, political parties and candidates seeking all levels of public office around the world. He has worked in over thirty countries on five continents.
In 2007 Trygve worked as part of the Presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. Prior to joining the McCain effort, Trygve served from 2001 to 2007, as the International Republican Institute's (IRI) Country Director for Belarus. In this capacity, and previously as a consultant, he was deployed by IRI to provide strategic advice and tactical guidance to political campaigns and political resistance efforts during elections in a number of countries including; Poland, Serbia, Croatia, Nigeria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Indonesia, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Venezuela, North Korea and Burma.
The efforts of groups Trygve has worked with have been highlighted in numerous media outlets including;
The New York Times, BBC, CNN, Washington Post, The Economist, the Wall
Street Journal-Europe, and the Financial Times. He is frequently interviewed by journalists working
on stories regarding elections around the world and provides on-the-record, off-the-record, and background
information about the countries where he works.
Prior to joining IRI, Trygve was a founding partner in the Public Affairs firm Public Issue Management, LLP (PIM). As a partner in PIM, Trygve managed numerous grassroots projects, on the national and local level, for a number of corporate and trade association clients. He managed a high profile twenty state, multi-year, grassroots project for several major technology companies. Prior to joining PIM, Trygve managed numerous political campaigns in his native state of Wisconsin for all levels of public office and served in the administration of former Governor Tommy Thompson.
Recently, Trygve completed writing a book, due out in the summer of 2008, entitled The Battle for Democracy - Twelve Lessons Learned that focuses on democracy building strategies. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife Erika Veberyte who serves as the Political Section Chief in the Lithuania Embassy to the United States.