During the 66th FIFA Congress in Mexico, in May 2016, Fatma Samoura became the first woman to be appointed as FIFA Secretary General. She took office on 20 June 2016.

Ms Samoura was born in Senegal on 9 September 1962. Before joining FIFA, she was a 21-year veteran of United Nations (UN) programmes and the UN’s Resident Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Nigeria. Before this role, she spent eight years in the private sector, working in the fertilizer trading sector for Senchim, a subsidiary of Industries Chimiques du Sénégal.

Ms Samoura earned her master’s degree in English and Spanish at the University of Lyon, and a post-master’s degree in international relations/international trade from the Institute d’Etudes Supérieures Spécialisées (IECS) Strasbourg-Finance.