In early 2015, the School’s current management learned, via Reuters, that there were alleged connections between Barbro Ehnbom, Jeffrey Epstein, and the Stockholm School of Economics. Prior to that, no one in the current management had any knowledge of this, nor did we have any reason to suspect any wrongdoing.

Until the connection between Barbro Ehnbom and Jeffrey Epstein became known to the current management in 2015, we believed that Ehnbom’s scholarship was something positive and could play a constructive role in advancing gender equality. As more and more information has come to light through media reporting in the years since 2015, we have, with deep dismay, been forced to conclude that there was much beneath the surface that we did not know. We are profoundly saddened that young women came into contact with a sex offender through someone they trusted and had confidence in.

In light of everything that has emerged, it is abundantly clear that representatives of the School should not have trusted Ehnbom, and we should of course have ended our collaboration with her much earlier. We should have understood that there were expectations that scholarship recipients would also participate in a network outside the School’s control, and therefore we should have taken broader responsibility for the scholarship as a whole. Representatives of the School should have examined more closely what the scholarship entailed beyond the official description, and of course the source of the donations. On behalf of the School, we want to apologize for the fact that this did not happen.

We have received information suggesting that former leaderships, going back many years, were informed about donations and connections to Jeffrey Epstein, but previous leaderships have denied knowing who he was or having any knowledge of incriminating information. It is one account against another on this point, and regardless of what is true, what happened is regrettable. What we do know with certainty is that the current management learned in 2015 who was behind these donations and then ended the collaboration with Ehnbom.

Regarding information about donations from Epstein, we have tried to be as transparent as possible and have responded openly to questions from the media. Now that the Epstein files are becoming available, it appears that the information in those files does not align with the internal information we have access to. Two foundations, Enhanced Education and the C.O.U.Q. Foundation, connected to Jeffrey Epstein, donated over several years to Barbro Ehnbom’s fund, which was a separate operation controlled by Barbro Ehnbom. The School administered the fund but did not actively monitor incoming donations. In 2015, we were able to conclude that we had failed in our internal controls regarding donors.

Since then, we have actively strengthened the oversight of incoming funds across the School more broadly. Even so, we cannot guarantee that there are no donor details we are unaware of, but we are doing everything we can to conduct proper due diligence on our contributors. A very large share of our operations is financed through private funding from companies, foundations, and individuals, so this is an extensive undertaking, but it is critically important that we continue to improve our controls.

The School strongly condemns everything that has come to light. We are sorry, and we regret any distress, discomfort, and suffering these events may have caused, and may continue to cause, our students and alumni.