[1] Ana Manuel Jerónimo Lopes Correia Mendes Godinho was born in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon on 29 June 1972, to a family from Vila Nova de Foz Côa.

She went to high school at Colégio Mira Rio in Lisbon, a private institution linked to Opus Dei.

She is a qualified Labour Inspector and from 2001 directed the department for the Support of Inspection Activity at the Portuguese Authority for Working Conditions (ACT).

[2][3][4][5] Mendes Godinho was deputy and chief of staff to the Secretary of State for Tourism, Bernardo Trindade, in the first government led by Prime Minister José Sócrates from 2005.

[6] As minister, she introduced legislation to ban companies in Portugal from contacting employees outside working hours and to make them meet their extra energy and communications costs under what the Financial Times described as “one of Europe’s most employee-friendly laws for regulating homeworking.“[7] Mendes Godinho is married and has three children.