Halimah Yacob is currently serving as the eighth president of Singapore since 2017. She is the first female president of the country. She is also the second Muslim to rule the country. She is also Southeast Asia’s fourth female Head of State. In 2001 she was the first Malay woman to be elected to Singapore’s Parliament after winning the seat in Jurong GRC. She became the first woman to be the Speaker of Singapore Parliament in 2013. She is till date the longest serving female Muslim politician in the ruling People’s Action Party.  She is the first Singaporean head of state to visit Netherlands since the establishment of relations between both the countries. She attained her Masters in law and soon joined the National Trades Union Congress. She then became the NTUC deputy secretary-general. In 2011 Halima was appointed Minister of State at the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. In 2012 she became the Minister of State at the Ministry of Social and Family Development. She served as the Executive Secretary of the United Workers of Electronics and Electrical Industries. The Standard Committee of the International Labor Conference Geneva, elected Halima as Worker’s Vice-Chairperson. She was the Workers Spokesperson for the ILC Committee on Human Resources Development and Training from 2004 to 2013. The National Council of Social Services named her its first advisor in 2013. In 2019 at Women’s Forum Asia, she encouraged the companies to embrace gender equality. She believes this will increase innovation and business profitability. In April 2020 following the COVID pandemic in Singapore, Halima approved to draw 21$ billion and aimed at supporting wages of 1.9 million workers.

For her contributions she was conferred the Berita Harian Achiever of the Year Award in 2001. She won the Her World Woman Award of the Year in 2003. In 2011 she attained the AWARE Heroine Award and was inaugurated in Singapore Council of Women’s Organization, Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014.