Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2007 to 2015. She was the second woman to serve as President of Argentina, and the first directly elected female president. Her husband Néstor Kirchner had served as president from 2003 to 2007, and she succeeded him to the post when he left the office. A graduate of the National University of La Plata, she embarked on a legal career. Even though she sympathized with the Peronist Youth during her university studies, she was not engaged in any notable political activism as a young woman. She ventured into politics in the late 1980s when she was elected to the Santa Cruz Provincial Legislature in 1989. Her political career thrived in the 1990s and she was elected to represent Santa Cruz in the Senate. During this time her husband’s political career was also on the rise and she helped him in his successful campaign for the presidency in 2003. As the First Lady of the country, she also worked as an itinerant ambassador for the government. Néstor Kirchner refused to run for re-election in 2007 and proposed Cristina Kirchner instead who successfully won the presidential election and assumed office in December 2007.