Category: International Leader / page 5

Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai


Wangari Muta Maathai was a Kenyan environmental political activist who was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004. She founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation and women's rights. Maathai was born April 1, 1940, in the village of Ihithe, Nyeri District, in Kenya. Her family was Kikuyu, the most populous ethnic group in Kenya. She was one of some 300 Kenyans selected to study in the United States in 1960 through a program funded […]
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo


Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo served as president of the Republic of the Philippines from 2001 to 2009, the country's second female president. She was also the country's first female vice president. Macapagal was born April 5, 1947. Her father was Diosdado Macapagal, who later served as Philippine president from 1961 to 1965. She studied at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and graduated magna cum laude from Assumption College with a bachelor's degree in commerce. She earned a master's degree in economics from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a master's degree and […]
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 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 […]
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 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, […]
Queen Noor of Jordan
Queen Noor of Jordan


Queen Noor of Jordan, also known as Noor Al-Hussein, is the American-born widow of King Hussein of Jordan. She is an advocate for issues of international exchange and understanding of Arab, Muslim and Western relations, and conflict prevention and recovery issues such as refugees, missing persons, poverty, climate change and disarmament. Her peace-building work has focused on the Middle East, the Balkans, Central and Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby on August 23, 1951, in Washington, D.C. Her father, Najeeb Halaby, was an […]