Park Geun-hye

Park Geun-hye (Korean: 박근혜 [pak‿k͈ɯn.hje] ; born 2 February 1952) is a South Korean politician who served as the 11th President of South Korea from 2013 until her removal from office in 2017. A member of the Grand National, Saenuri and Liberty Korea parties and the eldest daughter of the third president, Park Chung Hee, she was the first woman in the country and the first in East Asia to be elected as head of state. Park previously served as the acting first lady of South Korea under her father's presidency from 1974 until her father's assassination in 1979.

Born in Daegu, Park graduated from Sogang University in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering. Before her presidency, Park was leader of the conservative Grand National Party from 2004 to 2006 and again from 2011 to 2012, overseeing its rebrand to the Saenuri Party. She was also a member of the National Assembly, serving four consecutive parliamentary terms between 1998 and 2012. Park started her fifth term as a representative elected via national list in June 2012. In 2013 and 2014, Park ranked 11th on the Forbes list of the world's 100 most powerful women and the most powerful woman in East Asia. In 2014, she ranked 46th on the Forbes list of the world's most powerful people, the third-highest South Korean on the list, after Lee Kun-hee and Lee Jae-yong.

On 9 December 2016, Park was impeached by the National Assembly on charges related to influence peddling by her top aide, Choi Soon-sil. Then–Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn assumed her powers and duties as acting president as a result. The Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment by a unanimous 8–0 ruling on 10 March 2017, thereby removing Park from office, making her the first Korean president to be so removed. On 6 April 2018, South Korean courts sentenced her to 24 years in prison (later increased to 25 years) for corruption and abuse of power.