Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Eugenia Johnson Sirleaf is a Liberian politician and Harvard-trained economist who served as the 24th president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Born in Monrovia on 29 October 1938, she became the first elected female head of state in Africa. Her public life crossed finance, international development, opposition politics, imprisonment, exile, and national leadership, all in a country marked by military rule, contested elections, and the long work of peacebuilding.

Sirleaf’s family background connected rural Liberia, Monrovia, and the influence of Americo-Liberian culture, though she does not identify as Americo-Liberian. Her father, Jahmale Carney Johnson, was born into a Gola family in Bomi County and later became the first Liberian from an indigenous ethnic group elected to the national legislature. Her mother, of mixed Kru and German ancestry, was born in Greenville and raised in Monrovia by Cecilia Dunbar, a member of a prominent Americo-Liberian family. Sirleaf attended the College of West Africa, then studied in the United States at Madison Business College, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Harvard Kennedy School, where she earned a Master of Public Administration.

Her early career was rooted in economics and government finance. After returning to Liberia, she worked in the Treasury Department and then in President William Tolbert’s administration, including as Assistant Minister of Finance. In that role, she drew attention with a sharp speech to the Liberian Chamber of Commerce, saying that corporations were hurting the economy by hoarding profits or sending them overseas. She later served as Minister of Finance from 1979 to April 1980. When Samuel Doe seized power in a coup, Tolbert was killed and most of his cabinet was executed. Sirleaf initially accepted a post as president of the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment, but fled Liberia after publicly criticizing Doe and the People’s Redemption Council.

Exile did not remove her from public affairs. Sirleaf worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., then for Citibank in Nairobi, and later for Equator Bank. She returned to Liberia to contest a Senate seat for Montserrado County in 1985, in a disputed election, and was arrested after openly criticizing the military government. She was sentenced to ten years in prison and later released. In 1992, she became director of the United Nations Development Programme’s Regional Bureau for Africa at the rank of assistant administrator and assistant secretary general. She also served on international efforts connected to the Rwandan genocide, the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, and the effect of conflict on women and women’s roles in peace building.

Sirleaf ran for Liberia’s presidency in 1997 and finished second to Charles Taylor. She won the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006, then won re-election in 2011. That same year, she received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts to bring women into the peacekeeping process. In June 2016, she was elected Chair of the Economic Community of West African States, the first woman to hold that position. Her quoted line, “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough,” fits a life spent moving between danger and public duty, with ambition tied to service rather than ease.