Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, born 29 October, 1938, is the 24th President of Liberia and Africa’s first democratically elected female Head of State. She is serving her second term as President after winning the 2011 presidential election. She was one of the three women who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.
Madam Sirleaf has throughout her career demonstrated passionate commitment to hard work, integrity, good governance and has been advocating for the rights of women and the importance of education to provide a better future for her country and its people.
Born Ellen Eugenia Johnson in Monrovia, she is the granddaughter of a renowned traditional chief of western Liberia and the daughter of a market woman from the southeastern part of Liberia. She grew up in Liberia and attended high school at the College of West Africa in Monrovia. Subsequently, she studied at Madison Business College, University of Colorado and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration in 1971.
Her entry into politics began in 1972 when she delivered her famous commencement address at the Graduation Convocation of her alma mater (College of West Africa) in which she sharply criticized the government and demonstrated her determination to speak the truth no matter the consequences. This was the start of a distinguished professional and political career spanning nearly four decades.
In 1975 she joined the then Treasury Department in Liberia, rising to the position of Minister of Finance in 1979 where she introduced measures to curb the mismanagement of government finances. After the 1980 military coup d’état, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf served as President of the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) but fled Liberia as a result of the increasingly suppressive military dictates of the government that same year.
She traveled to Kenya and served as Vice President of CITICORP’s Africa Regional Office in Nairobi, and later moved to Washington, D.C. to assume the position of Senior Loan Officer at the World Bank, and as Vice President for Equator Bank. In 1992 she joined the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Assistant Administrator and Director of its Regional Bureau of Africa with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.
In 2003 when the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) was formed, Madam Johnson Sirleaf was selected to serve as Chairperson of the Governance Reform Commission where she led the country’s anti-corruption reform by changing the reporting mechanism of the General Auditing Commission from the Executive to the Legislature, thereby strengthening and reinforcing its independence. She resigned this position to successfully contest the 2005 presidential elections; resulting in her historic inauguration on January 16, 2006, as President of the Republic of Liberia.
After decades of fighting for freedom, justice and equality in Liberia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has spent more than nine years rebuilding post-conflict Liberia. She has revived national hope by strengthening the institutions of national security and good governance, leading the revitalization of the national economy and infrastructure, including the construction of more than 800 miles of roads, and restoring Liberia’s international reputation and credibility.
