Category: International Leader / page 5

Sanna Marin
Sanna Marin


Sanna Marin assumed the position as the prime minister of Finland on December 10, 2019. She was selected by her party when the sitting prime minister resigned. She is Finland's youngest prime minister and its third female prime minister, and was the world’s youngest serving prime minister when she took office. On April 2, 2023, her party lost the parliamentary election. Marin was born in Helsinki, Finland, on November 16, 1985. She graduated from the University of Tampere with bachelor's (2012) and master's (2017) degrees in administrative services. Marin served […]
Theresa May
Theresa May


Theresa May served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from July 13, 2016, to July 24, 2019. She was elected following Prime Minister David Cameron's resignation after the outcome of the European Union membership referendum, but resigned after several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a deal for Britain's withdrawal. She is the UK's second female prime minister after Margaret Thatcher. May was born October 1, 1956, in Eastbourne, Sussex. She earned a B.A. degree in geography from St. Hugh's College, University of Oxford, in 1977. From 1977 to 1983, she […]
Mary P McAleese
Mary P McAleese


Mary McAleese served as president of Ireland from 1997 to 2011, the second female president of that country. She succeeded Mary Robinson, making her the world's first woman to succeed another as president. McAleese was born on June 27, 1951, in Belfast and is the first president to come from Northern Ireland. The eldest of nine children, McAleese grew up in Northern Ireland through the violent times that have come to be known as The Troubles. She graduated in law from the Queen's University of Belfast in 1973 and was […]
Golda Meir
Golda Meir


Golda Meir was the world's third female prime minister, serving as prime minister of Israel. She assumed the position after the sudden death of Levi Eshkol in 1969. Meir served as prime minister until 1974. Meir was born on May 3, 1898, in Kiev, Ukraine. At the age of 8, her family immigrated to the United States and she grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When she was young, Meir joined the Poalei Tzion youth movement. At the end of 1917, she married Morris Meyerson, and they immigrated to the Land […]
Giorgia Meloni
Giorgia Meloni


Giorgia Meloni is the current Prime Minister of Italy. She is the first woman to hold the position. She was first elected to the position on October 22, 2022. Meloni was born in Rome, Italy on January 15, 1977. She grew up in Rome. In 1992, she joined the Youth Front, a wing of the Italian Social Movement, a known neo-fascist political party. She founded the student organization Gli Antenati, "The Ancestors", which protested public education reform. In 1996, she became the leader of the Student Action, a student movement […]
Rigoberta Menchu
Rigoberta Menchu


Rigoberta Menchú has been a passionate spokesperson for the rights of indigenous peoples. She won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work on behalf of the indigenous groups of Guatemala, her native country. However, her work has made her a leading voice for the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Western Hemisphere. Rigoberta Menchú was born on January 9, 1959, in Chimel, a village in the Quiché province in the mountainous northwest region of Guatemala. Menchú started working on southern coastal cotton and coffee plantations when she was […]
Beatriz Merino
Beatriz Merino


Martha Beatriz Merino Lucero served as prime minister of Peru in 2003, the country's first female prime minister and the first female prime minister in Latin America. Merino was born on Nov. 15, 1947, in Peru. She graduated with a degree in economics in London and received her master’s degree at Harvard. From 1990 to 1992, Merino served in Peru's Senate, and from 1995 to 2000, she served as congresswoman. Merino served as the director of the Women’s Leadership Programme, now known as the Gender Equality in Development Unit, at […]
Angela D Merkel
Angela D Merkel


Angela Merkel served as Germany's chancellor from 2005 to 2021 and the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018, the first female to hold either position. Merkel was born in Hamburg on July 17, 1954. That same year, her family moved to Quitzow in East Germany. In 1957, the family moved to Templin, about 50 miles north of Berlin. Merkel thus grew up in the socialist German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik). She graduated from the University of Leipzig in 1978 with a degree in physics, […]
Roza Otunbayeva
Roza Otunbayeva


Roza Otunbayeva served as the president of Kyrgyzstan from April 7, 2010 until December 1, 2011. She was announced as the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in September 2022. Otunbayeva was born on August 23, 1950, in Frunze, Soviet Union (now Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). She graduated from Moscow State University in 1972 with a degree in philosophy. She was senior professor and head of the philosophy department at Kyrgyz State National University for six years. Otunbayeva began her political career in 1981 as […]
Geun-hye Park
Geun-hye Park


Park Geun-hye served as the president of South Korea from 2013 to 2017, the first woman president of that country. On Dec. 9, 2016, Park stepped back from her duties following a vote by parliament to impeach her over a corruption scandal. The impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court on March 10, 2017. Park was born February 2, 1952 in Samdeok-dong of Jung-gu, Daegu. Her father was Park Chung-hee, the third president of South Korea who served from 1961 to 1979. She received a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering […]