Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, 66, has welcomed the apology by a Swiss newspaper that described the seasoned international professional as a grandmother.

This follows her resumption as Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Monday, March 1, 2021.

“It is important & timely that they’ve apologised,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a tweet.

The development economist took over as the new WTO chief on Monday after a long, high-powered career serving as minister of finance and foreign affairs in her native Nigeria and 25 years at the World Bank, The Punch said.

But when several Swiss newspapers announced her appointment last month, they decided the most noteworthy thing to mention about the new WTO chief was as a matriarch.

“This grandmother will become the boss of the WTO,” read the headline of the article published by the Aargauer Zeitung and several other papers on February 9.

After a number of women heads of UN agencies and more than 120 ambassadors in Geneva last week signed a petition calling out the headline as racist and sexist, the paper apologized.

“This headline was inappropriate and unsuitable… We apologise for this editorial mistake,” the paper’s foreign editor-in-chief Samuel Schumacher said in a statement on Friday.

I’m thankful to all my sisters, UN Women Leaders and the 124 Ambassadors in Geneva who signed the petition on calling out the racist & sexist remarks in this newspaper. It is important & timely that they’ve apologized. @phumzileunwomen, @Winnie_Byanyima pic.twitter.com/pyz1TQ3tKA

— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala) February 28, 2021

We need to call out this behavior when it happens. This is precisely what my book Women & Leadership coauthored with @JuliaGillard talks about - the stereotypes women face when they take on leadership positions.

— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala) February 28, 2021