Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (1938 - ) was President of Liberia, from 2006 to 2018. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until 1980; after a coup d'état and the execution of Tolbert, Sirleaf fled to the United States, and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She contested the 1997 presidential election won by Charles Taylor. She was elected president in 2005 and again in 2011. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa. She introduced free and compulsory education, and negotiated substantial debt relief with creditor nations. In June 2016, she was elected as Chair of the Economic Community of West African States, the first woman to occupy that position. Sirleaf was jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.