Category: International Leader / page 8

Vaira Vike-Freiberga
Vaira Vike-Freiberga


Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga was president of the Republic of Latvia from July 8, 1999, to July 8, 2007, the first female president of Latvia. Vike-Freiberga was born December 1, 1937, in Riga, Latvia. To escape the Soviet occupation, her family fled the country in 1945, and became refugees. She began her schooling in refugee camps in Germany and later in French Morocco. Vike-Freiberga arrived in Canada in 1954. She entered the University of Toronto in 1955, obtaining a B.A. (1958) and an M.A. (1960) in psychology. Vike-Freiberga continued her education […]
Margot Wallström
Margot Wallström


Margot Elisabeth Wallström was the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs and acting Deputy Prime Minister from October 2014 to September 2019. Wallström was born September 28, 1954, in Skellefteå, Sweden. After graduation from high school, she worked as a bank clerk and then an accountant. She has worked as the CEO of a regional TV network in Sweden and as the executive vice-president of Worldview Global Media in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Wallström has held a number of political positions in the Swedish parliament, the Swedish government and the European Commission. […]
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf


Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf served as president of Switzerland from January 1 to December 31, 2012, and served as head of Switzerland's Department of Finance from November 2010 to December 2015. Widmer-Schlumpf was born on March 16, 1956, and grew up in Felsberg. After legal studies in Zurich in 1981, she returned to her native Canton of Graubünden where she was admitted to the bar, practicing as a lawyer and notary public. She obtained a doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1990. She worked as a self-employed lawyer and notary public […]
Betty Williams
Betty Williams


Betty Williams is a peace activist from Northern Ireland and a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize with Mairead Maguire in 1976 for their work as co-founders of the Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People, an organization dedicated to encouraging a peaceful resolution to violence in Northern Ireland. Williams was born on May 22, 1943, in Belfast, Northern Ireland as Elizabeth Williams. Unusual for the time, her father was Protestant and her mother was Catholic, to which Williams attributes her religious tolerance and desire for […]
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai


Malala Yousafzai is an advocate for women's education from Pakistan. In 2014, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate at age 17 when she shared the Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi. Yousafzai was born in Mingora, Pakistan on July 12, 1997. In 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her school bus. She was targeted because of her previous activism for education, including her experience as a blogger for BBC on her experience living under the threat of the Taliban, which she initially did using […]
Olena Zelenska
Olena Zelenska


Olena Zelenska is a Ukrainian screenwriter and the first lady of Ukraine, the wife of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenska was the first, and so far only, first lady from another country to speak before the U.S. Congress, when she addressed Congress on July 20, 2022, to request more military aid for Ukraine in their war against the Russian invasion.
Sahle-Work Zewde
Sahle-Work Zewde


Sahle-Work Zewde assumed office as president of Ethiopia on October 25, 2018, the first woman to hold that office. Zewde was born on February 21, 1950, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Empire (now Ethiopia). She graduated from the University of Montpellier with a degree in natural sciences. Prior to her election as president, Zewde served at under secretary-general of the United Nations to the African Union in 2018 and director-general of the United Nations Office at Nairobi from 2011 to 2018. From 1989 to 2008, she served as the Ethiopian ambassador […]