Noeleen Heyzer was the first woman from outside North America to be appointed as Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the first woman Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). In this memoir, Noeleen Heyzer reflects on her remarkable journey—from the challenges of her childhood and youth, her intellectual development at the University of Singapore and the University of Cambridge, to her groundbreaking work on women’s empowerment and her meteoric rise to the position of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Contains a foreword by Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen and an afterword by Professor Tommy Koh, Ambassador-at-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore. ‘This is an urgent and bold story of how a determined individual rose from difficult beginnings to global leadership, and how she used the values and platform of the United Nations to deliver gender equality and women’s empowerment in so many parts of the world. Noeleen Heyzer’s story is a tribute to women’s leadership and tenacity, and to the type of multilateral system so much needed in our new era.’—Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary General ‘I once described Noeleen Heyzer’s leadership in the United Nations as proactive, flexible and egoless. This book shows that leadership in action.’—Ban Ki Moon Former United Nations Secretary General (2007-2016)