Asma Fawaz al-Assad (born Asma Fawaz Akhras on August 11, 1975, in Damascus, Syria) is a British-Syrian economist and former investment banker who served as First Lady of Syria from 2000 to 2024 during her husband Bashar al-Assad's presidency. Born into a prominent Sunni Muslim family of Syrian origin, she moved to London in the 1980s where she was raised in West London. She attended Queen's College and graduated from King's College London in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in computer science and French literature. She worked as an investment banker at Deutsche Bank in New York and Morgan Stanley in London before meeting and marrying Bashar al-Assad, an ophthalmologist, on December 13, 2000, shortly after he assumed the presidency. As First Lady, she positioned herself as a modernizing force, founding the Syrian Sustainable Development Network in 2005 to promote women's empowerment, education, and rural development. However, her role became highly controversial during Syria's civil war starting in 2011, with critics accusing her of supporting the regime's brutal crackdown on protesters, involvement in propaganda efforts, and personal enrichment through luxury spending while the country suffered. She has been sanctioned by the EU, US, and others since 2011 for alleged human rights abuses, including the regime's use of chemical weapons and torture. Reports detailed her online shopping sprees for designer goods during the war, earning her the moniker 'First Shopper of Syria.' In December 2024, following the fall of the Assad regime to rebel forces, Asma reportedly fled to Russia, where she holds citizenship, amid allegations of corruption and war crimes. Her marriage to Bashar, an Alawite, was seen as a strategic alliance to broaden the regime's support base. She has three children and has faced health rumors, including breast cancer treatment in 2018.