Barbara Bertelsen

Barbara Beatrice Bober Bertelsen (known by her initials BBB; born 24 September 1973) is a Danish jurist and senior civil servant. She is the current Permanent Secretary of State to the Prime Minister's Office of Denmark, and as such the head and principal civil servant in the central administration of Denmark. She is the first woman to hold this position and thus the highest-ranking female civil servant in Danish history.

Born in Copenhagen, but raised in Esbjerg, Bertelsen graduated from Aarhus University with a law degree in 1998. A civil servant throughout her entire career, she started at the Danish Ministry of Justice upon finishing her education, steadily advancing in the ministry to progressively senior positions until 2012, with a minor secondment to the Prime Minister's Office early in her career. As newly appointed Deputy Director-General of the Danish Modernization Agency, Bertelsen became acquainted and worked closely with then Minister of Employment, Mette Frederiksen. When Frederiksen became Justice Minister in 2015, she appointed Bertelsen as her Permanent Secretary, and she continued in that position serving under four different Ministers of Justice. Following Frederiksen's electoral victory in 2019, Bertelsen was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office in 2020.

As permanent secretary, Bertelsen oversaw the expansion of the Prime Minister’s Office and its coordinating authority across government. She has played a prominent role in Denmark’s crisis management during the 2010s and 2020s, including the 2015 terror attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 mink cull, and the intelligence service (FE) affair. Her partnership with Mette Frederiksen has been described as unusually close, and their joint leadership has drawn both attention for its decisiveness and criticism for centralisation and a confrontational style. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she took early and decisive measures to address the crisis, but her management style, characterised by close oversight and direct communication, garnered acclaim and criticism. Despite receiving a warning in connection with the mink case for hastening processes leading to legal infractions, Bertelsen's disciplinary sanction was later rescinded.