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Served as Canada’s nineteenth and first female Prime Minister in 1993. In 2004, she was included in the list of 50 most important political leaders in history in the Almanac of World History compiled by the National Geographic Society. She was cited for her status as the only woman head of government of a North American country. Campbell is a founding member of the Club of Madrid, an organization of former heads of government and state who work to promote democratization through peer relations with leaders of transitional democracies, and she currently sits on the Board of Directors.
Prior to 1993, Campbell held cabinet portfolios as Minister of State for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans’ Affairs. She was the first woman to hold the Justice and Defence portfolios, and the first woman to be Defence Minister of a NATO country. She participated in major international meetings including the Commonwealth, NATO, the G-7 Summit and the United Nations General Assembly.
After her tenure as Prime Minister, Campbell was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics (Spring 1994) and the Joan Shorenstein Center for the Study of Press and Politics (1994-1995) at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She served as the Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles from 1996-2000. In 2001 she became a Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School and then was invited to join the faculty as a lecturer. She remains an Honorary Fellow.
From 2004 until 2006 Campbell served as Secretary General of the Club of Madrid, an organization of former heads of government and state who work to promote democratization through peer relations with leaders of transitional democracies. She is a founding member and additionally has served as its Acting President in 2002 and Vice President 2003-2004. She currently sits on the Board of Directors.
Campbell served as Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders (CWWL) from 1999-2003. The Council’s membership consists of women who hold, or have held, the office of President or Prime Minister in their own country. From Oct. 2003 – Oct. 2005, she served as President of the International Women's Forum, a global organization of women of significant and diverse achievement.
Campbell is Chair of the Board International Advisors of the newly formed Foundation for Effective Governance in Kiev. She is a Trustee of the Crisis Group, the Salk Institute, and the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King’s College London. She also serves on advisory boards of numerous other international organizations such as the Arab Democracy Foundation, which launched in Doha in May of 2007, the Global Security Institute (GSI), and the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI). She is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, (the West Coast affiliate of the Council on Foreign Relations), the International Council of the Asia Society of New York and Board of the Forum of Federations. Campbell is the chair of the steering committee the World Movement for Democracy (WMD), as well as a member of the WMD’s Eminent Persons Group for the Defending Civil Society project. She is also on the High-Level Advisory Group of the East West Institute’s International Task Force on Preventive Diplomacy and serves on advisory boards for Glendon College at York University as well as UCLA’s School of Public Policy, among others. Her corporate director experience includes the high tech, bio-tech and medical devices industries and she is a consultant on issues related to democratization and leadership.
Campbell was educated at the University of British Columbia (BA, 1969, LLB, 1983) and the London School of Economics (Doctoral studies in Soviet Government, ABD, 1970-73) where she’s an Honorary Fellow. She holds seven honorary doctorates. In 2008, the University of Alberta Press released th