Cherie Blair is a leading human rights lawyer and a passionate campaigner for women’s equality across the world. Her determination to help women overcome prejudice has led her to visit and speak in many countries. She also actively promotes work-life balance policies, having herself experienced the pressures of combining a demanding career with being the wife of Tony Blair and a mother of four.

Tony Blair said his wife was "…an enormous source of strength and an extraordinary person in her own right. I never know how she manages with all the different things she does - the work, the family.” The New York Times wrote: “Cherie Blair is viewed as something of a wonder woman for her ability to balance her high-powered professional life, high-visibility public life and intensely consuming private life." But Mrs. Blair has shrugged off the wonder-woman tag, noting wryly that her life is as chaotic as most working mothers.

Having been brought up by a single mother in a modest home in Liverpool, she was the first member of her family to attend university. But after winning a place at the London School of Economics, she graduated with first class honors in law and went on to top her year in her Bar examinations.  She met and married Tony Blair in 1980 when they were both lawyers. They have four children; the youngest, Leo, was the first child born to a serving Prime Minister for over a century.

Mrs. Blair combined her legal career with bringing up the family, and in 1995 she was appointed Queen’s Counsel (as the most senior lawyers in England are known). She specializes in employment and human rights law and is regularly asked to appear in courts abroad. She also serves as a part-time judge.

During Tony Blair’s decade as Prime Minister, she was often at his side at international summits, on international trips and during election campaigning. But she also made many independent visits, often linked to the many charities with which she is associated. They include the children’s charity Barnardo’s, the disability charity SCOPE, Breast Cancer Care and the Loomba Trust, which helps widows and their children across the world. She takes a very active role in their work, visiting projects at home and abroad. Mrs. Blair is an ambassador for London 2012 and a member of UNICEF’s Global Task Force on Water.

She also co-authored The Goldfish Bowl, a fascinating account of the life in Downing Street from the perspectives of the spouses and families of past Prime Ministers.