INSPIRING: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff - From Guerrilla Fighter to "the Most Powerful Woman in the World"

Dilma Rousseff is the 36th and current President of Brazil. She is the first woman ever to hold the office. Prior to that, in 2005, she also was the first woman to become Chief of Staff of Brazil, appointed by then President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant and a schoolteacher, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972 and reportedly tortured. FULL BIO