Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born 29 October 1938 in Monrovia) is a Liberian economist and stateswoman who served two terms as President of the Republic of Liberia, from January 2006 to January 2018. Her election in 2005, in a runoff against former footballer George Weah, made her the first woman to be elected head of state of an African country.

Educated at the College of West Africa in Monrovia and later at Harvard's Kennedy School (Master of Public Administration, 1971), she built a career across public finance and international institutions, including positions at Citibank, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme, where she served as Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa. She held the post of Liberian Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert in the late 1970s before going into exile following the 1980 coup.

Her presidency followed the end of the Second Liberian Civil War and the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2003. Key priorities included debt relief — Liberia reached the HIPC Completion Point in 2010, cancelling roughly US$4.6 billion in external debt — reconstruction of basic infrastructure, anti-corruption reform, and restoring diplomatic ties. She also chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, though her own past support for Charles Taylor's rebellion in 1990 (which she later publicly apologised for) remained controversial.

In 2011 she shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, awarded "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." Her tenure was tested by the 2014–2016 West African Ebola epidemic, which killed over 4,800 Liberians. She handed power peacefully to George Weah in January 2018 — Liberia's first democratic transition between elected leaders since 1944. She subsequently chaired the WHO-convened Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response alongside Helen Clark in 2020–2021.