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 Johnson Sirleaf was born on October 29, 1938 in Monrovia, Liberia and is of
mixed Gola and German heritage. Her father was the first indigenous Liberian to
sit in the national legislature. Johnson-Sirleaf graduated from the College of West
Africa (Monrovia), a United Methodist high school.
She received a Bachelor of
Science in Accounting at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
in 1964, an economics diploma from the University of Colorado in 1970, and a
Master of Public Administration from Harvard University in 1971. She is a
member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, a social action
organization and the first collegiate sorority founded by and for black women
(1908).
Johnson-Sirleaf served as assistant minister of finance (1972–73) under President William Tolbert and as finance minister (1980–85) in Samuel K. Doe’s military dictatorship. During Doe’s regime she was imprisoned twice and narrowly
avoided execution. In the 1985 national election she campaigned for a seat in the
Senate and openly criticized the military government, which led to her arrest and
a 10-year prison sentence. She was released after a short time and allowed to
leave the country.
During 12 years of exile in Kenya and the United States, she
became an influential economist for the World Bank, Citibank, and other
international financial institutions. From 1992 to 1997 she was the director of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the United Nations Development Programme. She was elected President in the 2005 presidential election and took office in January 2006.
She is Liberian’s first elected female president and often referred to as the "Iron Lady." On 5 November 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Johnson-Sirleaf the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the United States.
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