Angela Merkel is Germany’s first woman Chancellor and longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union.
Born in 1954 in East Germany, she studied physics at the University of Leipzig and earned a doctorate in quantum chemistry at East German Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1978. From 1978 to 1990 Dr. Merkel worked as a chemist at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences.
Following the German reunification in 1990, Dr. Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for Stralsund-Nordvorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a seat she has held ever since. That same year she joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) political party and soon after was appointed to Helmut Kohl's cabinet as Federal Minister for Women and Youth.
In 1994 Dr. Merkel became the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety, serving until 1998. Following Kohl's defeat in the 1998 general election, she was named Secretary-General of the CDU. Dr. Merkel was chosen party leader in 2000 and lost the CDU candidacy for Chancellor in 2002 to Edmund Stoiber.
In the 2005 election she narrowly defeated Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, winning by just three seats, and after the CDU agreed a coalition deal with the Social Democrats (SPD), Dr. Merkel was declared Germany's first female Chancellor.
In 2007, Dr. Merkel became President of the European Council and chaired the G8. She was the second woman to do so. That same year, she signed the agreement for the Transatlantic Economic Council in an effort to strengthen transatlantic economic relations. She has been described as the de facto leader of the European Union, and was ranked as the world's second most powerful person by Forbes Magazine in 2013, the highest ranking ever achieved by a woman; Dr. Merkel is now ranked fifth.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Angela Merkel
BIRTHDATE
17 July 1954
EDUCATION
University of Leipzig, East German Academy of Sciences in Berlin
PLACE OF BIRTH
Hamburg, Germany
RESIDENCE
Germany
LANGUAGES
German, English, French, Russian
Catherine Ashton served as the inaugural European Union (EU) High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP) from 2009 to 2014.
In May 2012, Catherine Ashton was honored with the BusinessMed Blue Award. The award was presented to her in recognition of her efforts in promoting peace and economic development in the Mediterranean region.
Prior to taking up her current position, Catherine Ashton was the member of the Commission responsible for trade and represented the EU in the Doha Round of world trade talks, and built on strong bilateral trade and investment relationships.
Ms. Ashton previously worked as a Labour politician, and in June 2007 she was appointed to the Cabinet of the British Labour Government as Leader of the upper Parliamentary chamber, the House of Lords.
In 2005 she was voted “Minister of the Year” by The House Magazine and “Peer of the Year” by Channel 4. In 2006 she won the “Politician of the Year” award at the annual Stonewall Awards.
In September 2004, Ms. Ashton was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. In June 2001 she was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Education and Skills. In 2002 she was made responsible for the "Sure Start" initiative in the same department. In 1999 she was made a Labour life peer as a result of her work towards building communities.
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NAME
Catherine Ashton
BIRTHDATE
20 March 1956
EDUCATION
Bedford College
PLACE OF BIRTH
Upholland, United Kingdom
RESIDENCY
United Kingdom
LANGUAGES
English, French
Federica Mogherini is currently the High Representative for the European Union on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Since November 2014, she also serves as Vice President of the European Commission in the Juncker Commission.
Born in Rome in 1973, Ms. Mogherini studied Political Science at the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” She became an active member of the Democrats of the Left (DP), a social democratic party in Italy. Ms. Mogherini is a longstanding member of the DP leadership, first as Secretary for Institutional Reforms; member of the National Council; and serving from 2013 to 2014 as Secretary for European and International Affairs.
In 2008 she became one of the youngest members of parliament in Italian history, and has wide experience in a number of appointments. From 2008 to 2013, she was Secretary of the Defense Committee and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Following completion of these assignments, she went on to serve, between 2013-2014, as Head of the Italian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Vice-President of its Political Committee; member of the Italian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Ms. Mogherini is a member of the European Leadership Network for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (ELN) and of the Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
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NAME
Federica Mogherini
BIRTHDATE
16 June 1973
EDUCATION
La Sapienza University of Rome
PLACE OF BIRTH
Rome, Italy
RESDENCY
Rome, Italy
LANGUAGES
Italian, English, French, Spanish
Erna Solberg serves as Prime Minister of Norway since 2013 and is the second woman to ever hold the position.
She has dedicated her entire career to government service and has served at almost every level of public office in Norway. Born and raised in Bergen, Norway Ms. Solberg graduated from the University of Bergen in 1986, where she had studied political science and economics, as well as led the Students’ League of the Conservative Party.
During and after college, Ms. Solberg served as a deputy member of Bergen’s City Council, from 1979 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1989, and continued to be active in the Conservative Party.
She moved from local to national politics in 1989 successfully campaigning for a position in the Norwegian Parliament, the Storting. Ms. Solberg was reelected to her post five times and from 1994 to 1998 served as the head of the national Conservative Women's Association.
In 2001, Norwegian Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik, appointed Ms. Solberg as Minister of Local Government and Regional Development. She served in this position for four years pushing forward reforms to Norway’s immigration policy, including overhauling the asylum seeking process.
After leaving the Ministry Ms. Solberg became part of the Conservative Party leadership, assuming the role of party leader in 2004. Under her guidance, the party began to take back ground in parliament over the next several years and, in 2013, she led it to take majority control. Ms. Solberg was appointed prime minister of Norway in October of 2013, the second woman to ever hold the position.
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NAME
Erna Solberg
BIRTHDATE
24 February 1961
EDUCATION
University of Bergen
PLACE OF BIRTH
Bergen, Norway
RESIDENCY
Oslo, Norway
LANGUAGES
Norwegian, English
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland is Deputy Chair of the Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights. She has participated in peace-building missions for the Elders to Cyprus, the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East, and Myanmar.
Dr. Brundtland is the youngest and first female Prime Minister of Norway, serving three terms from 1981 to 1996.
At the age of seven, she became a member of the children’s division of the Norwegian Labour Movement. She has a medical degree and earned her Master’s degree in Public Health from Harvard University in 1965, and spent ten years as a physician and scientist in the Norwegian public health system.
Understanding the correlation between poor health and poor environmental factors, Dr. Brundtland accepted the Minister of the Environment position when it was offered to her in 1974, serving until 1979. She was appointed a member of the Palme Commission on Security and Disarmament in the 1980s.
In 1983, she was appointed chair of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland Commission), which led to the campaign for sustainable development and the first Earth Summit. In 1987, she spearheaded the Commission’s well-known report on sustainable development, Our Common Future.
Dr. Brundtland served from 1998 to 2003 as Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO); and from 2008 to 2010 as a member of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. From 2007 to 2010 she was appointed UN Special Envoy on Climate Change.
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NAME
Gro Harlem Brundtland
BIRTHDATE
20 April 1939
EDUCATION
Harvard University
PLACE OF BIRTH
Oslo, Norway
RESIDENCY
Oslo, Norway
LANGUAGES
Norwegian, English
Helen Clark is Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and is the first woman to lead the organization. She also chairs the UN Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all development-related UN funds, programmes and departments.
After receiving a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Auckland in 1974, Ms. Clark became a professor in the field, and taught at Auckland from 1973 to 1981. She joined the Labour Party in 1971, but was elected to Parliament from a different constituency in 1981, thus beginning her rise past the “glass ceiling.”
She held various positions such as: Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee from 1984 to 1987; and Minister, responsible for the Conservation, Housing, Health and Labour portfolios from 1987 to 1990.
Ms. Clark went on to become the first woman in New Zealand to serve as Deputy Prime Minister from 1989 to 1990; first woman appointed to the Privy Council in 1990; first woman to be elected as head of a major party (the Labour Party) in 1993; and the first woman elected Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving in this role for three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2008. As Prime Minister, she served as a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.
Ms. Clark is the recipient of the Danish Peace Foundation’s Peace Prize and was made a member of the Order of New Zealand (New Zealand’s highest honor) in 2009. She has also been listed as one of Forbes Magazine’s top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World for ten years.
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NAME
Helen Clark
BIRTHDATE
26 February 1950
EDUCATION
University of Auckland
PLACE OF BIRTH
Hamilton, New Zealand
RESIDENCY
New Zealand
LANGUAGES
English
Helle Thorning-Schmidt is the first woman Prime Minister of Denmark, having held the position since 2011.
Born in 1966 in Rødovre, Denmark, Ms. Thorning-Schmidt studied politics at the University in Copenhagen and in 1993 received her Master’s degree in public policy and administration from the European College in Bruges. She was politically active during her time at university and became a social democrat.
After graduation she helped lead the secretariat of the Danish delegation of Social Democrats in the European Parliament from 1994 to 1997. Afterwards she worked as an international consultant for several years with the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions.
In 1999 she was elected to the European Parliament. During her five-year term she served on the Employment and Social Committee and co-founded the Campaign for Parliament Reform (CPR). In 2005, the head of Denmark’s Social Democrats stepped down after a disappointing show for the party in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Ms. Thorning-Schmidt ran and won a successful campaign to become his successor.
She is the first woman to hold the top leadership position in the party. In 2007 she helped the Social Democrats regain some of the seats they had lost earlier in Denmark’s parliament, the Folketing, and during the 2011 elections she guided the Social Democrats to form a four-party coalition majority.
During her service as Prime Minister, Ms. Thorning-Schmidt has pushed for reform of the country’s restrictive immigration policy and supported investment in jobs to revive the Danish economy rather than through austerity.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Helle Thorning-Schmidt
BIRTHDATE
14 December 1966
EDUCATION
University in Copenhagen, European College in Bruges
PLACE OF BIRTH
Rødovre, Denmark
RESIDENCY
Denmark
LANGUAGES
Danish, English, French
Angela Kane assumed the position of High Representative for Disarmament Affairs in March 2012. She provides the Secretary-General with advice and support on all arms control, non-proliferation and related security matters and is responsible for the activities of the Office for Disarmament Affairs. She was the lead negotiator in 2014 in persuading Syria to allow for investigations on allegations of use of chemical weapons and eventually leading to the Syria decision to give up its chemical weapons by joining the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Ms. Kane has had a long and distinguished career in the United Nations. In addition to substantive assignments in political affairs, peacekeeping and disarmament, she has held various managerial functions, including with financial and policy-setting responsibility.
She served as Under-Secretary-General for Management from 2008-2012, overseeing human resources, financial management, procurement and support services and the renovation of the United Nations New York Headquarters campus.
From 2005 to 2008, Ms. Kane served as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, a core function related to the prevention and resolution of conflicts. Previously, she had served as the Assistant Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.
Her field experience includes Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), peacemaking in El Salvador, a special assignment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and postings in Indonesia and Thailand.
Ms. Kane also held the positions of Director in the Department of Political Affairs and Director in the Department of Public Information. She served as Principal Political Officer with former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and worked with the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for the Central American Peace Process. Ms. Kane worked on disarmament issues for several years and was responsible for the activities of the World Disarmament Campaign.
Before joining the UN Secretariat 38 years ago, Ms. Kane worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. and for the private sector in Europe.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Angela Kane
BIRTHDATE
29 September 1948
EDUCATION
University of München, Bryn Mawr College and
the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
PLACE OF BIRTH
Hamelin, Lower Saxony, Germany
RESIDENCY
Germany
LANGUAGES
German, English, French, Spanish, Dutch
Tarja Halonen’s dedication to improving human rights has been the backbone of her political career. Born and raised in post-war Helsinki, she attended the University of Helsinki from 1963 to 1968, where she studied law and became active in student government.
In 1971 Ms. Halonen began working as a lawyer at the Central Organization of Finnish Trade, developing a strong background in union and labor politics.
She became a member of the Social Democratic Party after university and in 1979 ran a successful campaign and was elected to Finland’s parliament.
Ms. Halonen went on to hold her position in parliament for six terms. During her time in office she advocated for LGBT rights, women’s rights, and to lessen globalization’s impact on labor rights.
In 1999 former Finnish President Martiti Ahtisaari decided not to run for a second term and Ms. Halonen sought the Social Democratic Party’s nomination to run for his seat. She won the 2000 election and became Finland’s 11th president and the first woman to hold the position.
Ms. Halonen enjoyed large margins of public approval during her first term and was reelected to the presidency in 2006.
After finishing a successful second term in 2012 she went on to join the Council of Women World Leaders and remains an active voice for human rights in Finland and on the international stage to this day.
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NAME
Tarja Halonen
BIRTHDATE
24 December 1943
EDUCATION
University of Helsinki
PLACE OF BIRTH
Helsinki, Finland
RESIDENCY
Finland
LANGUAGES
Finnish, English, Swedish, Estonian
Margot Wallström is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden. Her career as a diplomat is rooted in decades of experience in both the public and private sectors.
After graduating from high school in 1973, she became active in the Swedish Social Democrats Youth League and ran for parliament in 1979. Ms. Wallström served as a representative until 1985 and then spent the next decade holding a variety of jobs in banking, media, and civil affairs.
From 1988 to 1991 Ms. Wallström was appointed Minister for Consumer Affairs, Women and Youth. In 1993 she became part of the Executive Committee of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and from 1994 to 1996, she was appointed Minister of Culture. She then served as Minister for Social Affairs from 1996 to 1998, before taking on a new assignment from 1999 to 2004 as European Commission for the Environment.
Ms. Wallström‘s time serving on the European Commission strengthened her experience in international diplomacy and led to her appointment to the European Commission for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy, a position she held from 2004 to 2009.
In 2010, UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon appointed Ms. Wallström to the position of Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict, a position she held for three years.
In October 2014, Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, selected Ms. Wallström to become Minister of Foreign Affairs. Her tenure in this role has been distinguished by a strong commitment to women’s rights and supporting peace in the Middle East.
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NAME
Margot Wallström
BIRTHDATE
28 September 1954
EDUCATION
High School Diploma
PLACE OF BIRTH
Skellefteå, Sweden
RESIDENCY
Stockholm, Sweden
LANGUAGES
Swedish, English
Mary Robinson served as a first female President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. She is president of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice.
Born in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland, Ms. Robinson earned her Bachelor of law degree at Trinity College and her professional Barrister-at-Law degree from King’s Inns, Dublin in 1967. That same year she pursued a Master’s degree in law at Harvard Law School. Upon returning to Ireland, she was appointed Tutor at University College Dublin and became a Reid Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law at Trinity College.
In 1969 Ms. Robinson presented herself as a candidate to the Senate and won the election. She served as a member of the Senate for the next 20 years, advocating legal reforms and arguing landmark cases before national courts; the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR); and the European Court in Luxembourg.
In 1973 Ms. Robinson became a member of the English Bar and three years later a Senior Counsel. She also served as a member of the Advisory Commission of Inter-Rights and of the International Commission of Jurists. In 1990 the Labour Party nominated Robinson as an independent candidate for the presidency. She won that election and became the first female President of Ireland. In office Ms. Robinson focused on issues concerning emigrants of Irish decent, empowering women and improving the relations with Northern Ireland.
In 1997, Ms. Robinson was appointed as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Following completion of her term in 2002, she established the Ethical Globalization Initiative, known as Realizing Rights, which focuses on African countries.
Ms. Robinson has served as Chair of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights and, in 2007, she was invited by Nelson Mandela to become a member of the Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights.
She is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a former Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Mary Robinson
BIRTHDATE
21 May 1944
EDUCATION
Trinity College, Ireland,
King’s Inns, Harvard Law School
PLACE OF BIRTH
Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland
RESIDENCY
Ireland
LANGUAGES
English, French
Louise Arbour is a Canadian lawyer and judge who served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a justice for the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and as the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
In 2007, Ms. Arbour was awarded the second highest honor of the Canadian national order with the grade of a Companion of the Order of Canada, a highly prestigious award.
In 2009, Louise Arbour was granted the title of Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec, a civilian honor for merit in the Canadian province.
Louise Arbour first attended Collège Regina Assumpta, and later earned her Bachelor of Laws with distinction from the Unversité de Montréal. She then became a Law Clerk for Justice Pigeon of the Supreme Court of Ottawa while completing her graduate studies at the Faculty of Law (Civil Section) of the University of Ottawa. Arbour’s early legal career was spent working first as a lecturer at Osgoode Hall Law School and then as an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and finally as Associate Professor/Associate Dean in 1987.
Following this academic tenure, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario and then the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 1990. In 1996, upon South African Supreme Court Justice Richard Goldstone’s nomination, she replaced him as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Following her work on the international tribunals, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada by then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
Louise Arbour has been published in the area of criminal procedure and criminal law, in both French and English, while at various times serving as an editor for Criminal Reports, the Canadian Rights Reporter, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal.
When made a Companion to the Order of Canada in 2007, Louise Arbour was cited by Canada’s Governor General “for her contributions to the Canadian justice system and for her dedication to the advancement of human rights throughout the world.”
Ertharin Cousin became the twelfth Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on 5 April 2012.
She has more than twenty-five years of national, international non-profit, government, and corporate leadership experience with a focus on hunger, food, and resilience strategies.
Born in 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, Ambassador Cousin earned a B.A. degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1979 and a J.D. degree in 1982 from the University Of Georgia School of Law. She started her career as Illinois Assistant Attorney General and Western Regional Office Director for the Illinois Attorney General’s office and as Deputy Director of the Chicago Ethics Board. In the private sector, she was Director of Governmental Affairs for AT&T.
Her governmental career began in earnest when in 1994 she joined as the White House Liaison at the U.S. State Department. There she received a Meritorious Service Award. She served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
In 1997, Ambassador Cousin received a White House appointment for a four-year term to the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development while at the same time leading government communications and community affairs for two large U.S. grocery chains, Albertsons Foods and Jewell Foods.
In 2002, she joined the board of America's Second Harvest, the nation’s largest domestic hunger organization, and in 2004 became its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Ambassador Cousin helped raise the annual revenue of the organization from $20 million to $56 million during her time there.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Ertharin Cousin
BIRTHDATE
1957
EDUCATION
University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Georgia School of Law
PLACE OF BIRTH
Chicago, Illinois
RESIDENCE
Rome, Italy
LANGUAGES
English
Louise Fréchette has enjoyed a long career as a Canadian diplomat and public servant.
In 1998, she was appointed to the newly-created position of UN Deputy Secretary-General by then UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. She held this post from 1998 until 2006. Also in 1998, Ms. Fréchette was awarded the second highest honor of the Canadian national order with the grade of an Officer of the Order of Canada, a highly prestigious honor.
Ms. Fréchette earned her undergraduate degree in history at the Université de Montréal followed by a post-graduate Certificate of Advanced European Studies from the College of Europe (Bruges).
She began her career in Canada’s Department of External Affairs, with noteworthy appointments in Athens and Geneva. In 1985, she became Canada’s ambassador to Argentina, and in 1992 Canada appointed her as its ambassador to the UN.
In 1995, she left Canada’s foreign service to transition first to assistant deputy minister of finance in Ottawa, with a subsequent promotion to deputy minister of national defense as the first woman to hold the position.
Ms. Fréchette is currently serving a three-year term at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, an international relations and policy think tank in Waterloo, Ontario. She is committed to a research project on nuclear energy and the world’s security in this capacity.
Additionally, Ms. Fréchette is Chairman of the Board of Directors of CARE Canada and a member of the Board of Directors of CARE International. Ms. Fréchette is also a Member of the Global Leadership Foundation and is a member of the International Advisory Board at the Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID) at McGill University.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Louise Fréchette
BIRTHDATE
16 July 1946
EDUCATION
Université de Montréal, College of Europe (Bruges)
PLACE OF BIRTH
Montreal, Canada
RESIDENCE
Waterloo, Canada
LANGUAGES
English, French
Christine Lagarde currently serves as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the most recent in a series of groundbreaking positions she has held throughout her distinguished career.
Born in Paris, Ms. Lagarde pursued her Law and Master’s degrees in France and after graduation quickly became a successful antitrust and labor lawyer at the international firm of Baker & McKenzie. She was appointed as the firm’s first female Chairman of Global Strategic Committee in 2004.
In 2005, Ms. Lagarde began her career in public service as France’s Minister for Foreign Trade. Then in 2007, she became the Minister for Finance and Economy under President Jacques Chirac, making her the first woman to lead a G-8 economy.
She took over the position just as the 2008 financial crisis began to spread across the globe. Ms. Lagarde’s tenure as minister was marked by critical reform, such as the regulation of hedge funds and an international tax on financial transactions, as well as practical, progressive initiatives such as merging France’s job-placement and unemployment-benefit agencies and strengthening anti-trust regulations.
She also built a diplomatic reputation in the international community through her work leading the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) in 2008 and serving as Chairman of the G-20 in 2011.
In July 2011 she was appointed the eleventh Managing Director of the IMF, the first woman to ever hold the directorship. Her five-year term is already being heralded as historic as Ms. Lagarde has guided the IMF’s management of the euro-zone debt crisis and pushed for a reform of the international monetary system to protect against future crises.
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NAME
Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde
BIRTHDATE
1 January 1956
EDUCATION
Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence
PLACE OF BIRTH
Paris, France
RESIDENCE
France
LANGUAGES
French, English
Sylvie Lucas is Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the United Nations and Chair of the Guinea Country Configuration of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. From 2009 to 2010, she served as sixty-fifth President of the Economic and Social Council.
Prior to her appointment at the United Nations, Ms. Lucas served as the Director for Political Affairs in Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Her career in government began in 1990, when she joined the Foreign Ministry Directorate for Political and Cultural Affairs. She then served in the Directorate for International and Economic Relations from 1991 to 1995.
Ms. Lucas’ other posts include serving from 1995 to 2000 as Luxembourg’s Deputy permanent Representative to the United Nations and from 2000 to 2002 as the Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director for Political Affairs. Ms. Lucas was Luxembourg’s ambassador to Portugal and Cape Verde simultaneously 2003 to 2004.
Ms. Lucas received a Master of Arts degree in History from the University of Human Sciences (now the University of Strasbourg) in 1988 and a Master of Arts in European Political and Administrative Studies in 1989 from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Sylvie Lucas
BIRTHDATE:
30 June 1965
EDUCATION
University of Human Sciences in Strasbourg, College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium
PLACE OF BIRTH
Luxembourg
RESIDENCE
Luxembourg
LANGUAGES
Luxemburgish, French, German, English, Portuguese
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Louise Arbour
BIRTHDATE
10 February 1947
EDUCATION
Université de Montréal, University of Ottawa,
Collège Regina
PLACE OF BIRTH
Montréal, Canada
RESIDENCE
Canada
LANGUAGES
English, French
Michaëlle Jean’s career as a journalist, activist, and diplomat reflects her lifelong commitment to public service. Originally born in Haiti, Ms. Jean immigrated to Canada with her family in 1968.
She developed a love of language early on in life and pursued undergraduate and then graduate degrees in linguistics and literature at the University of Montreal, the University of Perouse, the University of Florence, and at the Catholic University of Milan. Ms. Jean is fluent in five languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish and Creole and taught Italian for several years at the University of Montreal. During her time in academia she also learned about and developed a passion for working to end domestic violence.
From 1979 to 1987 she worked with a series of shelters for survivors of domestic violence in Quebec and also became involved with aid organizations for immigrant women and families. Later in her career she worked at Employment and Immigration Canada and at the Conseil des Communautés culturelles du Québec. In 1988 she transitioned from academia to journalism, joining Radio-Canada first as a reporter and then as a host. She went on to have an 18-year career in journalism, serving as an anchor on evening and daytime news and politic programs and in 2004 establishing her own program, Michaëlle, which featured in-depth news analysis and interviews.
In 2005, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her governor general of Canada. Ms. Jean was the first person of Caribbean origin to hold the post and the third woman to serve as governor general. She held the position until 2010, carrying out many of the ceremonial and constitutional duties of the Canadian monarchy in the Queen’s service.
After leaving the position of governor general Ms. Jean continued to expand her experience in public service and diplomacy, becoming the Special Envoy for Haiti for UNESCO and in 2012 was appointed to the Queen’s Privey Council for Canada. And in 2015 She became the third Secretary-General of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, the first woman to take on the role.
QUICK FACTS
NAME
Michaëlle Jean
BIRTHDATE
6 September 1957
EDUCATION
University of Montreal, University of Perouse, University of Florence, Catholic University of Milan
PLACE OF BIRTH
Port au Prince, Haiti
RESIDENCY
Canada
LANGUAGES
English, French, Spanish, Italian, Haitian Creole
