New Executive Secretary for the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat 29 May 2014 Elle Merete Omma has been elected as the next Executive Secretary for the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat (IPS). Ms. Omma will assume her full time duties at the IPS on September 1, 2014. Elle Merete Omma is Sámi and was raised in a reindeer herding family in Norway and Sweden. She studied International Communication at UNITEC in New Zealand and holds a Bachelor of Political Science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology as well as a Master of Laws from the University of Oslo. She is currently working as a Senior Adviser in the Department of Sami and Minority Affairs in the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernization. She has also had a secondment position at the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva during Norway´s membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council. In addition Elle Merete Omma has also done volunteer work with various Sámi NGOs.