Mrs Gladys Asmah was born on October 16, 1939, at Cape Coast, in the Central Region. She started her primary education at Wesley Girls School and then at the Ghana, National College, both on Cape Coast.

After her secondary education, she -worked briefly with the Ghana Railway Corporation and subsequently as a supervisor at the Laboratory and Quality Control Department of the Pioneer Tobacco Company (PTC), where she worked for six years.

Having been exposed to managerial training at the PTC, she decided to pursue further studies in Britain. And so in June 1963, she left Ghana for the United Kingdom.

In the UK, she attended the Hendon College of Technology and the Leeds College of Education and Home Economics and qualified as a Member of the Institutional Management Association of London.

After her training, she worked with the British Council as an assistant manager at the Overseas' Students Centre, Portland Palace, London, Whilst a student in London, she decided to specialise in the field of dressmaking and therefore familiarised herself with fashion organisations. Mrs Asmah gathered a few machines and started making nightgowns and petticoats in Birmingham.

Gladys Asmah finally came to settle in Ghana, she registered a factory as a partnership and later in 1975 incorporated it as a limited liability Company As an advocate of women's emancipation, Mrs Asmah supported the Tarkwa women's Generating income (TWIGA) to secure financial assistance to manufacture palm oil.

When the Social Welfare Department set up the Women Training institute at the Takoradi Neighbourhood Centre to train girls in vocational subjects, she consented And readily offered her workshop to train young women in the area.

Mrs Asmah is associated with several business and public organisations; she is the Chairperson, Management Board, Takoradi Women Training Institute; Board Member, Ahantaman Rural Bank-, second Vice-president, Association of Ghana Industries; and Chairman, Regional Implementation Committee, Women in Development.

The rest -are Board Member, Fijai Secondary School; Board Member, Ghana National College; Member, Western Regional Consultative Council and Sector Committee Chairman, Women Affairs Committee, New Patriotic Party (NPP).

She has attended several conferences overseas. These include a seminar on New Trends in Textile and Garment Industry, North Carolina State University in 1994; a seminar on Aid to Artisans, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. and Seminar on Export Financing, USAID Entrepreneurs International Conference for Women entrepreneurs, New Delhi, India in 1981.

She became a Member of Parliament of Takoradi from Jan 1997 – Jan 2009, a Minister of Women and Children Affairs between 2001–2005 and Minister of Fisheries from 2005–2009.

She died on 24 June 2014 at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and She was buried in Takoradi after her funeral on 1 November 2014.

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