Park Geun-hye is a former South Korean politician who served as President of South Korea from 2013 until 2017, when she was impeached and later convicted and removed on related corruption charges.
Park was the first woman to be elected president, and also the first female president popularly elected as head of state in East Asia. She was also the first South Korean president to be born after the founding of the First Republic of Korea. Her father, Park Chung-hee, was president from 1963 to 1979, serving five consecutive terms after he seized power in 1961.
Before her presidency, Park was leader of the conservative Grand National Party from 2004 to 2006 and leader of the Liberty Korea Party from 2011 to 2012. 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.