The 75th Anniversary of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is a major milestone in the program’s history. It offers us a chance to reflect on the impact of the program by examining the numbers. More than 335 current or former heads of government are IVLP alumni. Meridian International Center is proud to have coordinated the programs of 168 of these alumni.

I compiled basic data on these world leaders to see what sort of statistics could be gleaned. I focused on their age when they participated in the IVLP, how many years afterward they became a head of government and what was the length of their term. I also marked their gender and if they were currently in office.

The first lens that I would like to use to discuss the data is that of women leadership. While the rise of women leaders has been slow, its increase in recent years has been dramatic. In 1960 Sri Lanka elected the first female head of government in modern history, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. The second female head of government came in 1966 when Indira Gandhi became India’s first female Prime Minister. Gandhi was also the first female IVLP alumna to serve as the head of government. 13 years later in 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the second female IVLP alumna to serve as the head of government. The IVLP programs of both Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher were coordinated by Meridian International Center.

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