Beijing+15 NGO Forum

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright first woman to become United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996 and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate 99-0. She is currently a professor at Georgetown University.

Michelle Bachelet

Michelle Bachelet is 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 billionaire businessman and former senator Sebastián Piñera. She was inaugurated on March 11, 2006.

Mrs. Ban Soon-taek

Mrs. Ban Soon-tack is the wife of the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Claudia Blum

Claudia Blum became the first woman to be elected President of the Congress of Colombia. She is the current Ambassador of Colombia to the United Nations in New York City.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is the junior United States Senator from New York, and was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. She is married to Bill Clinton—the 42nd President of the United States—and was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

Geena Davis

Actress Geena Davis launched The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007. The Institute’s first focus is a program that works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children and to reduce stereotyping of both males and females.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the President of Liberia elected in the 2005 presidential election and took office on January 16, 2006. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d'état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She is Africa's first elected female head of state.

Ms. Kyung-wha Kang

Kyung-wha Kang was appointed United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2006 and took up the position on 15 January 2007. Her appointment is at the level of Assistant Secretary-General. Before joining the United Nations, Ms. Kang, a national of the Republic of Korea, was Director-General of International Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic, with a portfolio that covered a wide range of UN issues, including human rights. She also chaired the Commission on the Status of Women for its forty-eighth session in 2004 and its forty-ninth session in 2005, which marked the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.

Wangari Maathi

Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya in 1940. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, she is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, an environmentalist, a civil society and women's rights activist, and a parliamentarian. She is internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation and she has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds. In 2004 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany. She is considered by Forbes Magazine to be the "most powerful woman in the world at the present time." In 2007 she became the second woman to chair the G8 after Margaret Thatcher. Chancellor Merkel is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama is the wife of U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama. She will be the first African-American to become the First Lady of the United States. She was born and grew up on the South Side of Chicago and graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. After completing her formal education, she returned to Chicago and worked with the law firm Sidley Austin, as part of the staff of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center.