Leading Women

IWM recognises women world leaders…….

Corazon Aquino President, The Philippines, 1986-92
Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (born January 25, 1933), widely known as ‘Cory Aquino’, was President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was Asia’s first female President.

Edith Cresson Prime Minister, France, 1991-92
Édith Cresson (born on 27 January 1934 as Édith Campion in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris) is a French politician. She was the first, and so far, only, woman to become French Prime Minister.

Jenny Shipley Prime Minister, New Zealand, 1997-99
Jennifer Mary Shipley (born February 4, 1952), Prime Minister of New Zealand from December 1997 to December 1999, was New Zealand’s first female Prime Minister.

Gro Harlem Brundtland Prime Minister, Norway, 1981, 1986-89, and 1990-96
Gro Harlem Brundtland (born April 20, 1939) is a Norwegian politician, diplomat, and physician, and an international leader in sustainable development and public health. She is a former Prime Minister of Norway, and has served as the Director General of the World Health Organisation.

Michelle Bachelet President, Chile, 2006-present
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (born September 29, 1951) is a center-left politician and the current President of Chile—the first woman to hold this position in the country’s history. She won the 2006 presidential election in a runoff, beating center-right billionaire businessman and former senator Sebastián Piñera, with 53.5% of the vote. A moderate Socialist, she campaigned on a platform of continuing Chile’s free market policies, while increasing social benefits to help reduce the country’s gap between rich and poor, one of the largest in the world.

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir President, Iceland, 1980-96
Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (born 15 April 1930) was the 4th president of Iceland, serving from 1980 to 1996. She was the world’s first elected female president.

Sheikh Hasina Prime Minister, Bangladesh, 1996–2001
Sheikh Hasina Wazed (born September 28, 1947) was the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2001. She has been the President of the Awami League, a major political party in Bangladesh, since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nationalist leader and the first president of Bangladesh.

Mary Robinson President, Ireland,
1990-97
Mary Robinson ( born 21 May 1944) was the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997. She defeated Fianna Fáil’s Brian Lenihan in the 1990 presidential election becoming, as an Independent candidate nominated by the Labour Party, the Workers’ Party of Ireland and independent senators, the first elected president in the office’s history not to have the support of Fianna Fáil. She is credited by many as having revitalised and liberalised a previously conservative political office.

Kim Campbell Prime Minister, Canada, 1993
Was the 19th Prime Minister of Canada from 25 June to 4 November 1993. As Prime Minister, she was unique as the only woman ever to hold Canada’s highest office and the third woman to serve as a head of government in North America (after Eugenia Charles of Dominica and Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua). She was also the second woman in history to sit at the table of the Group of Eight leaders, after British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Portia Simpson Miller Prime Minister, Jamaica 2006-present
Portia Lucretia Simpson-Miller, ON,MP (born 12 December 1945 in Wood Hall, St. Catherine Parish) is, since 30 March 2006, the Prime Minister of Jamaica. She replaced outgoing Prime Minister P. J. Patterson, becoming the first female head of government of the nation and the third in the Anglophone Caribbean following Eugenia Charles of Dominica and Janet Jagan of Guyana. She also holds the position of president of the ruling People’s National Party.

Luísa Dias Diogo Prime Minister, Mozambique, 2004-present
Luísa Dias Diogo (born April 11, 1958) has been prime minister of Mozambique since February 2004. She replaced Pascoal Mocumbi, who had been prime minister for the previous nine years. She is the first female to be prime minister of Mozambique. Luisa Diogo represents the party FRELIMO, which has ruled the country since independence in 1975.

Angela Merkel Chancellor, Germany, 2005-present
Angela Dorothea Merkel (born July 17, 1954), is the first female Chancellor of Germany. She is the, the first former citizen of the German Democratic Republic to lead the reunited Germany and the first woman to lead Germany since it became a modern nation-state in 1871. She is also, as of 2006, the youngest person to be chancellor since the Second World War. Merkel, considered by the Forbes Magazine to be the most powerful woman in the world, is only the third woman to serve on the G8 (after Margaret Thatcher of the UK and Kim Campbell of Canada) and in 2007 became the second woman to chair a G8 summit after Thatcher.

Mary McAleese President, Ireland, 1997–present
Mary Patricia McAleese (born 27 June 1951) is the eighth, and current, President of Ireland. She was first elected president in 1997 and was re-elected, without contest, to another seven year term in 2004. Born in Belfast in Northern Ireland, prior to becoming president she was a barrister, journalist and academic.

Hanna Suchocka Prime Minister, Poland, 1992-93
Hanna Suchocka (b. 3 April 1946 in Pleszew, Poland) is a Polish political figure. She served as the prime minister of Poland between July 11, 1992 and October 26, 1993 under the presidency of Lech Wasa, and was the first woman to hold this post in Polish history.

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