Michelle Bachelet Jeria served as president of Chile for two terms (2006–2010 and 2014–2018), becoming the first woman to hold the presidency and the first to be re-elected in a democratic election since 1932.  

A trained physician, she graduated in 1982 from the faculty of medicine at the University of Chile, specializing in pediatrics and public health. She later completed studies in military strategy and political science.  

With Chile’s democratic transition in 1990, Bachelet focused her career on public health and social policy. She also worked as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization, and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ). 

During President Ricardo Lagos’s administration, she served as minister of health (2000–2002) and later as minister of defense (2002–2004), becoming the first woman in Chile and in Latin America to hold that position. In the 2006 presidential election, she obtained 53.5% of the vote and became the first woman elected president in Chile’s republican history. She served her first term from 2006 to 2010.  

Her first administration prioritized expanding social protection for children, older persons, and people with disabilities; increasing investment in education and healthcare; advancing labor reforms; and embedding gender equality as a state policy.  

Between her presidencies, then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed her as the first executive director of UN Women, an entity dedicated to fight for the rights of women and girls worldwide.  

In 2014, she was re-elected president with 62.1% of the vote. During her second term, she introduced tuition-free higher education, promoted new environmental policies, advanced marriage equality legislation, and established the ministry of women and gender equality.  

In 2018, she founded Horizonte Ciudadano, a foundation created to place her experience and vision at the service of progressivism, fostering dialogue and citizen initiatives around the challenges facing Chile from a global and forward-looking perspective.  

In September 2018, she was appointed by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, serving until August 2022. During her tenure, she promoted international human rights standards and addressed global humanitarian crises.  

Since 2024, she has served as Vice President of Club de Madrid. She is also Co-Chair of the World Bank Group’s High-Level Advisory Council on Jobs, aimed at creating jobs on a large-scale in five high-potential sectors: agribusiness, health, energy and infrastructure, tourism, and manufacturing.  

She is currently the candidate of Brazil and Mexico for Secretary-General of the United Nations.