1. Ana Isabel de Palacio y del Valle Lersundi was born on 22 July 1948 and in Madrid, daughter of Luis Maria de Palacio y de Palacio, 4th Marques de Matonte, and wife Luisa Mariana del Valle Lersundi y del Valle, was Spain's minister for foreign affairs in the People's Party government of Jose Maria Aznar from July 2002 to March 2004.
Ana Palacio currently is the founding partner of Palacio y Asociados, a Madrid-based consulting and law firm, and a senior strategic counsel at Albright Stonebridge Group, a global business strategy firm.
Ana Palacio holds degrees in law, and political science and sociology; her performance in her degree studies merited the Award for Academic Achievement.
Ana Palacio is an honorary member of the bar of England and Wales.
Ana Palacio served as a member of the board of trustees and former executive president of the Academy of European Law ; and distinguished professor of the European College in Parma.
Ana Palacio has worked as a practicing lawyer specializing in EU internal market law.
Ana Palacio spent eight years with the European Parliament, where she chaired the Committee on Legal Affairs and Internal Market and the Committee on Justice and Home Affairs, and was elected by her peers to chair in two half legislatures the Conference of Committee Chairmen, the Parliament's most senior body for the coordination of its legislative work.
From 1995 until 1999, Ana Palacio served on the committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Ana Palacio was the first woman to serve as Spain's foreign minister and, at the time, held the most senior post ever filled by a woman in the Spanish government.
Ana Palacio served on the UN High Level Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor between 2005 and 2006.
One of her primary duties, as general counsel, involved Ana Palacio's serving as secretary general of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which is the division of the World Bank responsible for administrating arbitrations and conciliation between individuals and states under investment protection treaties, concession agreements and other foreign investment protection instruments, including certain national investment laws.
Since 2010, Ana Palacio has been the founding partner of Ana Palacio y Asociados, a Madrid-based consulting and law firm, and serving as a senior strategic counsel for Albright Stonebridge Group, an international strategic consulting firm.
Ana Palacio has been visiting professor of the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University since 2014.
Since 2011, Ana Palacio has written monthly comments on global strategy for international media organization Project Syndicate.
In 2003, Ana Palacio created together with other prominent European personalities the Medbridge Strategy Center, whose goal is to promote dialogue and mutual understanding between Europe and the Middle-East.
In January 2004 Ana Palacio was listed among The Wall Street Journal's 75 'global opinion leaders'.
In 2016, Ana Palacio was awarded the Sandra Day O'Connor Justice Prize.
Ana Palacio refused to wear a wig or a hat when the chemotherapy made her hair fall out.
Ana Palacio's sister, Loyola de Palacio, was a minister in the Spanish government from 1996 to 1998, and a member of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004; she died of a fulminant hepatitis while receiving therapy for cancer in Madrid 'Doce de Octubre' hospital, in 2006.