Michelle Bachelet

Michelle Bachelet, born in 1951, is a Chilean physician and politician who served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018, the first woman elected to that office and the first woman to serve as Chile's minister of health and minister of national defense. She entered politics in the Socialist Youth and was detained and tortured by the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet before going into exile in Australia and East Germany. She returned to Chile in 1979, completed her medical studies and worked in public health and government. She was Minister of Health from 2000 to 2002 under President Ricardo Lagos and Minister of National Defense from 2002 to 2004. After her first presidency she was the first executive director of UN Women from 2010 to 2013, and after her second she served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022. Her presidencies included pension and social-protection reforms and the expansion of public services. She is a member of the Socialist Party.