Early life

Born Maria da Conceição das N. C. Ramos on 22 February 1959 in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, Ramos went on to study economics and taught the subject at the University of South Africa

University of South Africa

The University of South Africa is a distance education university, with headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa. With approximately 300 000 enrolled students, it qualifies as one of the world's mega universities.-History:...

 and the University of the Witwatersrand

University of the Witwatersrand

The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...

. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Master of Science in Economics from the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

Political life

She was a member of the ANC

African National Congress

The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

 team that worked on the fiscal aspects of South Africa's 1993 Interim Constitution, rising to prominence in the mid-to-late 1990s as director general of South Africa's National Treasury.

Business life

She would later become chief executive of that country's state-owned transportation company Transnet

Transnet

Transnet SOC Ltd is a large South African rail, port and pipeline company, headquartered in the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg. It was formed as a limited company on April 1, 1990. A majority of the company's stock is owned by the Department of Public Enterprises, or DPE, of the South African...

, and in 2009 was appointed Group CEO of the Barclays PLC subsidiary Absa

ABSA

ABSA may refer to:* ABSA Cargo Airline, a cargo airline* Absa Group Limited, the largest consumer bank in South Africa* African Baseball & Softball Association* Australian Bird Study Association, an ornithological organization...

, one of South Africa's largest financial services companies.