[2] In 1997, as the popular Berlin senator (councillor) responsible for schools, youth and sport she found herself defending the government's contentious spelling reforms to the press.
[3] Two years later she withdrew from politics and embarked on a career as an "organisation and process consultant" also identified as a "group dynamicist" ("Gruppendynamikerin").
[2] Ingrid Ulrici was born in Mittersill, a small town some distance upriver from Salzburg and far from her mother's Berlin home.
In 1962, by this time the only girl in an otherwise all-male cohort, Ulrici passed her school final exams ("Abitur") which opened the way to higher education.
She moved on to what was then known as the "Welfare Academy" ("Wohlfahrtsschule") in Bremen where she studied for and obtained a degree-level qualification in social work.
[2] The next year she married Günter Stahmer, who conspicuously would never share his wife's appetite for a high public profile.
[4] Between 1966 and 1971 she worked in the social services in Berlin's Charlottenburg district (part of the British occupation zone in a divided city).
Her principal rival was Walter Momper who had already served as governing mayor of West Berlin during the turbulent prelude to reunification.