Ursula von der Leyen

Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (German: [ˈʊʁzula ˈɡɛʁtʁuːt fɔn deːɐ̯ ˈlaɪən] ⁱ; née Albrecht; born 8 October 1958) is a German physician and politician serving as the 13th president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding successive positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as minister of defence. Von der Leyen is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its EU affiliated group, the European People's Party (EPP).

Quick facts: Ursula von der Leyen, President of the Europe... ▼

Ursula von der Leyen
Official portrait, 2020
President of the European Commission
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 December 2019
First Vice-President	Frans Timmermans
Preceded by	Jean-Claude Juncker
Minister of Defence
In office 17 December 2013 – 17 July 2019
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Preceded by	Thomas de Maizière
Succeeded by	Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
Merkel Cabinet Minister of Labour and Social Affairs In office 30 November 2009 – 17 December 2013 Chancellor Angela Merkel Preceded by Franz Josef Jung Succeeded by Andrea Nahles Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth In office 22 November 2005 – 30 November 2009 Chancellor Angela Merkel Preceded by Renate Schmidt Succeeded by Kristina Schröder
Party roles Deputy Leader of the Christian Democratic Union In office 15 November 2010 – 22 November 2019 Serving with Volker Bouffier, Julia Klöckner, Armin Laschet, Thomas Strobl Leader Angela Merkel Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Preceded by Christian Wulff Succeeded by Silvia Breher
Lower Saxony Cabinet Minister of Social Affairs, Women and Families and Health In office 4 March 2003 – 22 November 2005 Minister-President Christian Wulff Preceded by Gitta Trauernicht Succeeded by Mechthild Ross-Luttmann
Parliamentary constituencies Member of the Bundestag for Lower Saxony In office 27 October 2009 – 31 July 2019 Preceded by multi-member district Succeeded by Ingrid Pahlmann Constituency Christian Democratic Union List Member of the Landtag of Lower Saxony for Lehrte In office 4 March 2003 – 7 December 2005 Preceded by Gerhard Schröder (1998) Succeeded by Dorothee Prüssner
Personal details
Born	Ursula Gertrud Albrecht (1958-10-08) 8 October 1958 (age 64) Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium
Nationality	German
Political party	Christian Democratic Union (1990–present)
Spouse	Heiko von der Leyen ​ ​ (m. 1986)​
Children	7
Parent	Ernst Albrecht (father)
Relatives	Hans-Holger Albrecht (brother) Carl Albrecht (grandfather)
Alma mater	University of Göttingen University of Münster London School of Economics Hannover Medical School (MD, MPH)
Occupation	Politician Physician Research fellow
Signature
Website	Official website

Ursula von der Leyen was born and raised in Brussels to German parents. Her father, Ernst Albrecht, was one of the first European civil servants. She was brought up bilingually in German and French. She moved to the Hanover Region in 1971 when her father entered politics to become minister-president of the state of Lower Saxony in 1976. As an economics student at the London School of Economics in the late 1970s, she lived under the name Rose Ladson, the family name of her American great-grandmother from Charleston, South Carolina. After graduating as a physician from the Hannover Medical School in 1987, she specialized in women's health. In 1986 she married fellow physician Heiko von der Leyen of the von der Leyen family of silk merchants. As a mother of seven children, she was a housewife during parts of the 1990s and lived for four years in Stanford, California, while her husband was on the faculty at Stanford University, returning to Germany in 1996.

In the late 1990s, she became involved in local politics in the Hanover region, and she served as a cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2005. In 2005, she joined the federal cabinet, first as minister of family affairs and youth from 2005 to 2009, then as minister of labour and social affairs from 2009 to 2013, and finally as minister of defence from 2013 to 2019, the first woman to serve as German defence minister.[1] When she left office she was the only minister to have served continuously in Angela Merkel's cabinet since Merkel became chancellor. She served as a deputy leader of the CDU from 2010 to 2019, and was regarded as a leading contender to succeed Merkel as chancellor of Germany and as the favourite to become secretary general of NATO after Jens Stoltenberg. British defence secretary Michael Fallon described her in 2019 as "a star presence" in the NATO community and "the doyenne of NATO ministers for over five years."[2] In 2023 she was again regarded as a favourite to take the role.

On 2 July 2019, von der Leyen was proposed by the European Council as the candidate for president of the European Commission.[3][4] She was then elected by the European Parliament on 16 July;[5][lower-alpha 1] she took office on 1 December, becoming the first woman to hold the office. In November 2022 von der Leyen announced that her Commission will work to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for the Russian Federation.[7]

Von der Leyen was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020[8] and again in 2022,[9] and was named the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2022.[10]