Then: Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women

Later: Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

Noeleen Heyzer first got involved with Salzburg Global Seminar in 1998 for the session Sustainable Rural Community Development. After this first session, the Singapore-native would come back three more times, including to a session on Women, Political Power, and Next Generation Leadership, a topic Heyzer was already very involved in. A year after that program, she was the first woman to be appointed as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, since its founding in 1947. At the same time, Heyzer was also appointed as Under-Secretary-General of the UN, until 2015.