Ms Nielsen began her career in the (then) Greenland Home Rule Government in 1997. She joined the European Commission in 2002, as Policy Officer in the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, with a secondment to the Secretariat-General of the Commission in 2005, to work in the Greenland Task Force that prepared the Communication on a new comprehensive partnership with Greenland. From 2014, she worked in the Directorate General for Mobility and Transport, dealing with coordination of EU positions in the International Maritime Organization, safety of shipping in the Arctic and waste from ships. In 2021, she joined the Directorate General for Environment, working in the team that prepared the proposal for a new Regulation on nature restoration. In November 2022, she took up a new post in the Directorate General for International Partnerships, as Head of Office of the European Commission in Nuuk, Greenland.
Rikke Nielsen holds a Master's Degree in Law from the University of Ă…rhus, Denmark and an LL.M in International Law from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Boston, USA