Female Presidents Currently In Office
People|Politicians

Female Presidents Currently In Office

Mike Rothschild
Updated July 15, 2024 97.3K views 23 items

While women rulers have led great empires as hereditary monarchs since ancient times, the first appointed female head of state didn't take office until 1960, when Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first female elected Premier, serving as head of the government. In 1974, Isabel Peron was secretly sworn in as President of Argentina following the death of her husband, Argentinian strongman Juan Peron, becoming the first woman in history to hold the top position of power.

Since then, it's become more and more common for women to be elected as the leaders of their nations. Many of the most powerful countries on earth, including Germany, India, Brazil, South Korea, Israel, Chile, and the United Kingdom have elected or appointed women as their heads of state. These women presidents and prime ministers have had command of nuclear weapons, powerful economies, vast populations, and - most importantly - the respect of their people.

Here is the complete list of current presidents or heads of government who are women.

  • Sahle-Work Zewde

    Sahle-Work Zewde

    President of Zimbabwe since 2018

    Sahle-Work Zewde, a native of Ethiopia, currently serves as the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi. She was appointed to this position by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 11 March 2011 and is the first person to hold the post at the level of Under-Secretary-General. By judgment dated 31 July 2012, the United Nations Dispute Tribunal criticized Zewde, because "she continued to lead UNON management to wallow in its disobedience and impunity". Prior to her appointment with UNON, Zewde served as Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic. Previously, she also held a number of other high level positions including as Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and as Director-General for African Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia. Besides her extensive experience at the regional and international level, Zewde is also a veteran in the Ethiopian foreign service who has served in a number of posts. From 2002 to 2006, she was Ambassador to France, Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and accredited to Tunisia and Morocco. From 1993 to 2002, she was Ambassador to Djibouti and Permanent Representative to the Intergovernmental Authority for Development. From 1989 to 1993, Zewde served as Ambassador to to Senegal, with accreditation to Mali, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia and Guinea.
    • Birthplace: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
    • Party (if partisan): Independent
  • Jacinda Ardern

    Jacinda Ardern

    Elected as Prime Minister of New Zealand in 2017

    Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern (; born 26 July 1980) is a New Zealand politician serving since 26 October 2017 as the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand. She has also served as the Leader of the Labour Party since 1 August 2017. Ardern has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Mount Albert electorate since 8 March 2017; she was first elected to the House of Representatives as a list MP at the 2008 general election.After graduating from the University of Waikato in 2001, Ardern began her career working as a researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clark. She later worked in the United Kingdom as a policy advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2008, she was elected President of the International Union of Socialist Youth.Ardern became a list MP in 2008, a position she held for almost ten years until her election to the Mount Albert electorate in the 2017 by-election, held on 25 February. She was unanimously elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party on 1 March 2017, following the resignation of Annette King. Ardern became Leader of the Labour Party on 1 August 2017, after Andrew Little resigned from the position following a historically low poll result for the party. She is credited with increasing her party's rating in opinion polls. In the general election of 23 September 2017, the Labour Party won 46 seats (a net gain of 14), putting it behind the National Party, which won 56 seats. After negotiations with National and Labour, the New Zealand First party chose to enter into a minority coalition government with Labour, supported by the Greens, with Ardern as Prime Minister. Ardern's government has focused particularly on the New Zealand housing crisis, child poverty, and social inequality. In March 2019, she led the country through the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings, and her government introduced strict gun laws in response. Ardern describes herself as a social democrat and a progressive. She is the world's youngest female head of government, having taken office at age 37. Ardern became the world's second elected head of government to give birth while in office when her daughter was born on 21 June 2018. For her global outreach, leadership skills, and the fact that New Zealand's global ratings of approval and importance are significantly improving under her premiership, Ardern has been widely described the most powerful woman in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the most powerful women in the world.
    • Birthplace: Hamilton, New Zealand
    • Party (if partisan): Labour
  • Katrín Jakobsdóttir

    Katrín Jakobsdóttir

    Elected as Prime Minister of Iceland in 2017

    Katrín Jakobsdóttir (pronounced [ˈkʰaːtrin ˈjaːkʰɔpstouhtɪr]; born 1 February 1976) is an Icelandic politician serving as the 28th and current Prime Minister of Iceland since 2017. She is the member of the Althing for the Reykjavík North constituency since 2007. She became deputy chairperson of the Left-Green Movement in 2003 and has been their chairperson since 2013. Katrín was Iceland's Minister of Education, Science and Culture and of Nordic Co-operation from 2 February 2009 to 23 May 2013. She is Iceland's second female prime minister after Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir.
    • Birthplace: Reykjavik, Iceland
    • Party (if partisan): Left-Green Movement
  • Tsai Ing-wen

    Tsai Ing-wen

    President of the Republic of China since 2016
    Tsai Ing-wen (Peh-oe-ji: Chhòa Eng-bûn, [t͡sʰua˧˩ ɪŋbun˨˦], born 31 August 1956) is a Taiwanese politician and professor who is serving as the President of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, since May 20, 2016. The first woman to be elected to the office, Tsai is the seventh president of the Republic of China under the 1947 Constitution and the second president from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); part of Taiwan's Pan-Green Coalition. She is also the first president to be of both Hakka and aboriginal descent (a quarter Paiwan from her grandmother), the first unmarried president, the first to have never held an elected executive post before presidency and the first to be popularly elected without having previously served as the Mayor of Taipei (Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian, and Ma Ying-jeou all served as the Mayor of Taipei). She was the Democratic Progressive Party candidate in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Tsai previously served as party chair from 2008 to 2012, and from 2014 to 2018. Tsai studied law and international trade, and later became a law professor at Soochow University School of Law and National Chengchi University after earning an LLB from National Taiwan University, an LLM from Cornell Law School and a Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1993, as an independent (without party affiliation), she was appointed to a series of governmental positions, including trade negotiator for WTO affairs, by the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and was one of the chief drafters of the special state-to-state relations doctrine of then President Lee Teng-hui. After DPP President Chen Shui-bian took office in 2000, Tsai served as Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council throughout Chen's first term as a non-partisan. She joined the DPP in 2004 and served briefly as a DPP-nominated at-large member of the Legislative Yuan. From there, she was appointed Vice Premier under Premier Su Tseng-chang until the cabinet's mass resignation in 2007. She was elected and assumed DPP leadership in 2008, following her party's defeat in the 2008 presidential election. She resigned as chair after losing her 2012 presidential election bid. Tsai ran for New Taipei City mayorship in the November 2010 municipal elections but was defeated by another former vice premier, Eric Chu (KMT). In April 2011, Tsai became the first female presidential candidate of a major party in the history of the Republic of China after defeating her former superior, Su Tseng-chang, in the DPP's primary by a slight margin. She was defeated by incumbent Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou in the 5th direct presidential election in 2012, but was elected by a landslide four years later in the sixth direct presidential election in 2016.
    • Birthplace: Fangshan, Pingtung
  • Angela Merkel

    Angela Merkel

    Chancellor of Germany since 2005
    Angela Dorothea Merkel (, German: [aŋˈɡeːla ˈmɛɐ̯kl̩]; née Kasner; born 17 July 1954) is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and, following the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, by many commentators as the new leader of the Free World.Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany and moved to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, and briefly served as a deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected East German Government headed by Lothar de Maizière in 1990. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and has been reelected ever since. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as the Federal Minister for Women and Youth in Kohl's government in 1991, and became the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994. After her party lost the federal election in 1998, Merkel was elected Secretary-General of the CDU before becoming the party's first female leader two years later in the aftermath of a donations scandal that toppled Wolfgang Schäuble. Following the 2005 federal election, Merkel was appointed Germany's first female chancellor at the head of a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the 2009 federal election the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, and Merkel was able to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP). At the 2013 federal election, Merkel's CDU won a landslide victory with 41.5% of the vote and formed a second grand coalition with the SPD, after the FDP lost all of its representation in the Bundestag. After the 2017 federal election the CDU was again the largest party, and she was reelected to her fourth term on 14 March 2018.In 2007, Merkel was President of the European Council and played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. One of Merkel's consistent priorities has been to strengthen transatlantic economic relations. Merkel played a crucial role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level, and she has been referred to as "the decider". In domestic policy, health care reform, problems concerning future energy development and more recently her government's approach to the ongoing migrant crisis have been major issues during her Chancellorship. In 2009 she succeeded George W. Bush as the senior G7 leader and in 2014 she became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union. In October 2018, Merkel announced that she would not seek reelection as leader of the CDU at the party convention in December 2018 and as Chancellor in 2021.
    • Birthplace: Hamburg, Germany
  • Sheikh Hasina

    Sheikh Hasina

    Prime Minister of Bangladesh since 2009

    Sheikh Hasina Wazed (Bengali: শেখ হাসিনা ওয়াজেদ; English: , SHAYK hə-SEE-nə; born 28 September 1947) is a Bangladeshi politician serving as the 10th Prime Minister of Bangladesh, having held the office since January 2009. She is the longest serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh. She is the daughter of Bangladesh's first President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Sheikh Hasina is the eldest of his five children. Her political career has spanned more than four decades. She previously served as opposition leader from 1986 to 1990 and from 1991 to 1995, as Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001, and has been leading the Bangladesh Awami League since 1981. In 2008, she returned as Prime Minister with a landslide victory. In January 2014, she became Prime minister for a third term in an unopposed election, in an election boycotted by the opposition and criticised by international observers. She won a fourth term in December 2018, following an election marred with violence and criticised by the opposition as being rigged. Hasina is considered one of the most powerful women in the world, ranking 26th on Forbes' list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2018. and 30th in 2017. Sheikh Hasina has also made her room in the list of top 100 Global Thinkers of the present decade as the famous US-based Foreign Policy journal came up with a register of worldwide thinkers. She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers.Her tenure as Prime Minister has been marred by several scandals and criticised for authoritarian practices. Scandals under her time include: Padma Bridge Scandal, Hallmark-Sonali Bank Scam, Share market Scandal, Rana Plaza collapse, and Bangladesh road safety protests 2018. She has also been praised for economic growth under her tenure.
    • Birthplace: Tungipara Upazila, Bangladesh
    • Party (if partisan): Bangladesh Awami League
  • Saara Kuugongelwa

    Saara Kuugongelwa

    Prime Minister of Namibia since 2015
    Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila (born 12 October 1967) is the fourth and current Prime Minister of Namibia, in office since 21 March 2015. Kuugongelwa is a member of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). She has been a member of the National Assembly of Namibia since 1995 and served as Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2015. She is the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Namibia.
    • Birthplace: Ovamboland
  • Bidhya Devi Bhandari

    Bidhya Devi Bhandari

    President of Nepal since 2015
    • Birthplace: Mane Bhanjyang, Bhojpur, Kingdom of Nepal
    • Party (if partisan): Independent
  • Ana Brnabić

    Ana Brnabić

    Prime Minister of Serbia since 2017

    Ana Brnabić (born 28 September 1975) is a Serbian politician who has been the Prime Minister of Serbia since 29 June 2017. She is the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the office. She was previously the Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government of Serbia from 11 August 2016 until 29 June 2017, under Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić and Acting Prime Minister Ivica Dačić. After Vučić was inaugurated as the President of Serbia on 31 May 2017, he proposed Brnabić as his successor in June. Her government was voted into office on 29 June 2017 by a majority of 157 out of 250 Members of the National Assembly of Serbia. Brnabić is the second female LGBT head of government and the fifth openly LGBT head of government in the world.
    • Birthplace: Belgrade, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia
    • Party (if partisan): SNS
  • Halimah Yacob

    Halimah Yacob

    President of Singapore since 2017

    • Birthplace: Queen Street, Colony of Singapore
    • Party (if partisan): Independent
  • Vjosa Osmani

    Vjosa Osmani

    President of Kosovo since 2020

    • Birthplace: Mitrovica, Republic of Kosovo
  • Paula-Mae Weekes

    Paula-Mae Weekes

    President of Trinidad and Tobago since 2018

    • Birthplace: Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
    • Party (if partisan): Independent
  • Mia Mottley

    Mia Mottley

    Prime Minister of Barbados since 2018

    Mia Amor Mottley, QC, MP (born 1 October 1965) is a Barbadian politician and attorney who is the current Prime Minister of Barbados and leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP). Mottley is the eighth person to hold the position of Prime Minister in Barbados and first woman to hold either position. Mottley has been the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Saint Michael North East since 1994. From 1994 to 2008, she held a succession of ministerial portfolios including the post of Attorney-General of Barbados becoming the first woman to be appointed as such. She is also a member of the Inter-American Dialogue.Mottley was twice the Leader of the Opposition in House of Assembly of Barbados first from 2008 to 2010 then from 2013 to 2018. In 2018, the Mottley-led BLP won an historic landslide victory in the 24 May general election, securing all 30 seats in the House—making them the first party to accomplish this feat—in addition to winning 72.8% of the popular vote, which is the highest share ever achieved by a party in a general election.
    • Birthplace: Barbados
    • Party (if partisan): Barbados Labour Party
  • Salome Zurabishvili

    Salome Zurabishvili

    President of Georgia since 2018

    Salome Zourabichvili (Georgian: სალომე ზურაბიშვილი, [sɑlɔˈmɛ zurɑbiʃˈvili]; born 18 March 1952) is a Georgian politician and former French diplomat who currently serves as the 5th President of Georgia, in office since December 2018. She is the first woman to be elected as Georgia's president, a position she will occupy for a term of six years. As a result of constitutional changes coming into effect in 2024, Zourabichvili is expected to be Georgia's last popularly elected president; all future heads of state are to be elected indirectly by an electoral college. Zourabichvili was born in Paris into a family of Georgian immigrants. She joined the French diplomatic service in the 1970s and went on to occupy a variety of senior diplomatic positions for three decades. From 2003 to 2004, she served as the Ambassador of France to Georgia. In 2004, by mutual agreement between France and Georgia, she accepted the Georgian nationality and became the Foreign Minister of Georgia. During her tenure at the Georgian MFA, she negotiated a treaty that led to the withdrawal of Russian forces from the undisputed parts of the Georgian mainland. She has also served at the UN Security Council’s Iran Sanctions Committee as the Coordinator of the Panel of Experts. After a falling out with Georgia's then President Mikheil Saakashvili, in 2006 Zourabichvili founded The Way of Georgia political party, which she led until 2010. Ultimately, she was elected to the Georgian Parliament in 2016 as an independent; she vacated her parliamentary seat after being sworn in as President. During the 2018 Georgian presidential election, Zourabichvili ran as an independent candidate and was supported by the governing Georgian Dream party. She prevailed in a run-off vote against Grigol Vashadze.
    • Birthplace: Paris, France
  • Zuzana Čaputová

    Zuzana Čaputová

    President of Slovakia since 2019

    • Birthplace: Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Mette Frederiksen

    Mette Frederiksen

    Prime Minister of Denmark since 2019

    Mette Frederiksen (Danish pronunciation: [mɛdə fʁɛðʁɛgsən]; born 19 November 1977) is a Danish politician who has been Prime Minister of Denmark since June 2019 and Leader of the Social Democrats since June 2015. The second woman to hold either office, she is also the youngest Prime Minister in Danish history.After a career as a trade unionist, Frederiksen was first elected to the Folketing in the 2001 general election, representing Copenhagen County. After the Social Democrats won the 2011 general election, she was appointed Minister of Employment by Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She was later promoted to become Minister of Justice in 2014. After the Social Democrats' narrow defeat in the 2015 general election, Thorning-Schmidt stood down and Frederiksen won the subsequent leadership election to replace her, becoming Leader of the Opposition.Frederiksen led her party into the 2019 general election which resulted in the bloc of left-wing and centre-left parties (her Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, the Socialist People's Party, the Red–Green Alliance, the Faroese Social Democratic Party and Greenland's Siumut and Inuit Ataqatigiit) winning a majority in the Folketing. Frederiksen was subsequently commissioned by Queen Margrethe II to lead ultimately successful negotiations to form a new government and was sworn in as Prime Minister on 27 June.
    • Birthplace: Aalborg, Denmark
  • Katerina Sakellaropoulou

    Katerina Sakellaropoulou

    President of Greece since 2020

    • Birthplace: Thessaloniki, Kingdom of Greece
  • Victoire Tomegah Dogbé

    Victoire Tomegah Dogbé

    Prime Minister of Togo since 2020

  • Rose Christiane Raponda

    Rose Christiane Raponda

    Prime Minister of Gabon since 2020

    • Birthplace: Libreville, Gabon
  • Kaja Kallas

    Kaja Kallas

    Prime Minister of Estonia since 2021

    • Birthplace: Tallinn, Estonia
    • Party (if partisan): Reform Party
  • Maia Sandu

    Maia Sandu

    President of Moldova since 2020

    • Birthplace: Risipeni, Moldovian SSR, Moldova
    • Party (if partisan): Independent
  • Ingrida Simonyte

    Ingrida Simonyte

    Prime Minister of Lithuania since 2020

    • Birthplace: Vilnius, Lithuania
    • Party (if partisan): Independent
  • Sanna Marin

    Sanna Marin

    Prime Minister of Finland since 2019

    • Birthplace: Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
    • Party (if partisan): Social Democratic