Category: International Leader / page 4

Katrín Jakobsdóttir
Katrín Jakobsdóttir


Katrín Jakobsdóttir assumed office as the prime minister of Iceland on Nov. 30, 2017. Jakobsdóttir was born February 1, 1976, in Reykjavík, Iceland. She earned a bachelor's degree in Icelandic and with minor in French in 1999 and a Master of Arts in Icelandic literature in 2004, both from the University of Iceland. She worked as a language advisor at the news agency at public broadcaster RÚV from 1999 to 2003, a freelancer for broadcast and print media from 2004 to 2006, and a lecturer at the University of Iceland, […]
Michaelle Jean
Michaelle Jean


Michaëlle Jean served as the 27th governor general of Canada from September 2005 to October 2010. Jean was Canada's first governor general of Caribbean origin and the third woman to serve in this position. From January 2015 - 2019 she assumed office as the secretary-general of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, the first woman to hold that position. Jean was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She immigrated to Canada with her family in 1968, fleeing the dictatorial regime of the time. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Italian and […]
Kersti Kaljulaid
Kersti Kaljulaid


Kersti Kaljulaid served as the president of Estonia from 2016-2021. She was the first female, and youngest, head of state in Estonia since the country declared independence in 1918. Kaljulaid graduated from the University of Tartu in 1992 with a degree in genetics. She completed her master’s studies in economics and business administration in 2001. From 1996 to 1999, Kaljulaid worked in several corporate positions in Estonia. From 1999 to 2002, she was the economic advisor of Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar, and from 2002 to 2004, she was the […]
Begum Khaleda Zia
Begum Khaleda Zia


Begum Khaleda Zia served as Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first woman in Bangladesh's history and second in the Muslim world (after Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan) to head a democratic government as prime minister. Khaleda Zia was born in the Dinajpur district in northwestern Bangladesh in 1945. In 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman. Her husband, one of the prominent heroes of the country's liberation war, later became President of the Republic and formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) […]
Mari Kiviniemi
Mari Kiviniemi


Mari Johanna Kiviniemi, deputy secretary-general of the OECD since August 2014, served as prime minister of Finland from 2010 - 2011, Finland's second female prime minister. Kiviniemi was born September 27, 1968 in Seinäjoki, Finland. She graduated from the University of Helsinki with a degree in economics. She first ran as a candidate for member of parliament in 1991, garnering less than 5,000 votes, while serving as the secretary general of the Centre Party Student Union. The year after completing the work for her master's degree in social sciences, she […]
Jadranka Kosor
Jadranka Kosor


Jadranka Kosor was elected as Croatia's first woman prime minister since independence on July 6, 2009, after Ivo Sanader's sudden resignation from the post, and served until December 23, 2011. Kosor also replaced Sanader as the head of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), serving from July 4, 2009 to May 21, 2012. Born on July 1, 1953, in Pakrac, Croatia, Kosor completed her secondary education in the town of Lipik. She graduated with a law degree from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, where she became a print and […]
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga


Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was elected prime minister of Sri Lanka in 1994 and then president later that same year. She was re-elected to a second term in 1999 and survived an assassination attempt in 2000. Kumaratunga was born June 29, 1945. Her father, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, was a senior minister of the government at the time of her birth and later became prime minister. Her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world's first woman prime minister in 1961. Kumaratunga graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in political science. She […]
Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke


Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, politician and writer, is the executive director of Honor the Earth, an organization she co-founded in 1993, and was the founder and executive director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project until 2014. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president of the United States as the nominee of the Green Party with Ralph Nader. LaDuke was born on August 18, 1959, in Los Angeles, California. Her father, an activist and actor, was an Ojibwe from White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. […]
Christine Lagarde
Christine Lagarde


Christine Lagarde was managing director of the International Monetary Fund from July 5, 2011 until Sept. 12, 2019. On Nov. 1, 2019, she assumed office as president of the European Central Bank. Lagarde is the first female finance minister of a G-7 economy, the first woman to head the IMF, and the first female president of the European Central Bank. Lagarde was born on January 1, 1956 in Paris, France. As a teenager, she was a member of the French national synchronized swimming team. After completing high school in 1973, […]
Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen


Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen is a member of the French National Assembly and was the president of the National Front (FN), a far-right political party in France. Le Pen was born August 5, 1968, in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Her father is Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front party, and her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, was a member of Parliament from 2012 to 2017. Le Pen received a Master of Laws in 1991 and a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in criminal law in 1992, both from Panthéon-Assas University. […]