Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (born 29 April 1968) is a Croatian politician and diplomat who served as President of Croatia from 2015 to 2020.

Kolinda Grabar was born on 29 April 1968 in Rijeka, Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, to Dubravka (b. 1947) and Branko Grabar (b. 1944).

She was raised mainly in her parents' village of Lopača, just north of Rijeka, where the family owned a butcher shop and a ranch.

As a high school student, she entered a student exchange program and at 17 moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, subsequently graduating from Los Alamos High School in 1986.

She was the first woman to be elected to the office since the first multi-party elections in 1990 and independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

At 46 years of age, she also became the youngest person to assume the presidency.

Before her election as President of Croatia, Grabar-Kitarović held a number of governmental and diplomatic posts.

In 1992, Grabar-Kitarović became an advisor to the international cooperation department of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Grabar-Kitarović was a member of the conservative Croatian Democratic Union party from 1993 to 2015 and was also one of three Croatian members of the Trilateral Commission, but she was required to resign both positions upon taking office as president in 2015, as Croatian presidents are not permitted to hold other political positions or party membership while in office.

Upon her return to Yugoslavia, she enrolled at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Spanish languages and literature.

In 1993 she joined the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

In the same year she transferred to the Foreign ministry, becoming an advisor.

From 1995 to 1996, she attended the Diploma Course at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna.

She became the head of the North American department of the Foreign ministry in 1995 and held that post until 1997.

That year she began to work at the Croatian embassy in Canada as a diplomatic councilor until October 1998, and then as a minister-councilor.

In 2000 she obtained a master's degree in international relations from the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Zagreb.

When Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) came to power after 2000 elections Tonino Picula became minister of Foreign Affairs.

After taking office he immediately started to remove politically appointed staff that had been appointed by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) to high-ranking diplomatic positions.

Grabar-Kitarović was ordered to return to Croatia from Canada within next six weeks, which she at first refused to do because she was pregnant and had already made plans to give birth in Canada, however she eventually decided to return after being strongly pressured by the ministry to do so.

During her stay in the hospital, she applied for Fulbright scholarship for studying international relations and security policy.

She eventually moved to the United States and enrolled at George Washington University.

After graduating, she returned to Croatia and continued to live in Rijeka.

In 2002–2003, she attended George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs as a Fulbright scholar.

She also received a Luksic Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

She was minister of European Affairs from 2003 to 2005, the first female minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration from 2005 to 2008, Croatian ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011 and assistant secretary general for public diplomacy at NATO under Secretaries General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jens Stoltenberg from 2011 to 2014.

She is a recipient of the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Award and a number of national and international awards, decorations, honorary doctorates and honorary citizenships.

Two years later, she was elected to the Croatian Parliament from the seventh electoral district as a member of the Croatian Democratic Union in the 2003 parliamentary elections.

With the formation of the new government led by HDZ chairman Ivo Sanader she became Minister of European integration, which entailed the commencement of negotiations regarding Croatia's accession to the European Union.

After the separate ministries of Foreign Affairs and European Integration were merged in 2005 Grabar-Kitarović was nominated to become minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration.

She was confirmed by the Parliament and sworn in on 17 February 2005.

Her main task as foreign minister was to guide Croatia into the European Union and NATO.

On 18 January 2005, she became head of the State Delegation for Negotiations on the Croatian accession to the European Union.

Furthermore, on 28 November 2005 she was elected by the international community to preside over the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention's Sixth Meeting of the States Parties, or Ottawa Treaty, held that year in Zagreb.

Grabar-Kitarović was the first woman to be named president of the Ottawa Treaty.

Following the HDZ's victory in the 2007 parliamentary election and the subsequent formation of the Second Sanader Cabinet, she was reappointed as foreign minister, but was suddenly removed from the position on 12 January 2008.

The exact reason for her removal is not known.

As president, she launched the Three Seas Initiative in 2015, together with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

In December 2015, Grabar-Kitarović began her doctoral studies in international relations at the Zagreb Faculty of Political Science.

In 2017, Forbes magazine listed Grabar-Kitarović as the world's 39th most powerful woman.

In 2020 she was elected Croatia's representative in the International Olympic Committee.