The 100 Most Powerful Women

Forbes ^ | 8/30/2007

[bruinbirdman]

Special Report
The 100 Most Powerful Women
08.30.07, 6:00 PM ET

Rank	Name	Occupation	Country
1	Angela Merkel	Chancellor	Germany
2	Wu Yi	Vice premier	China
3	Ho Ching	Chief executive, Temasek Holdings	Singapore
4	Condoleezza Rice	Secretary of State	U.S.
5	Indra K. Nooyi	Chairman, chief executive, PepsiCo	U.S.
6	Sonia Gandhi	President, Congress Party	India
7	Cynthia Carroll	Chief executive, Anglo American	U.K.
8	Patricia A. Woertz	Chairman, Archer Daniels Midland	U.S.
9	Irene Rosenfeld	Chairman, chief executive, Kraft Foods	U.S.
10	Patricia Russo	Chief executive, Alcatel-Lucent	U.S.
11	Michèle Alliot-Marie	Minister for the Interior and overseas territories	France
12	Christine Lagarde	Minister of economy, finance and employment	France
13	Anne M. Mulcahy	Chairman, chief executive, Xerox	U.S.
14	Anne Lauvergeon	Chief executive, Areva	France
15	Mary Sammons	Chairman, chief executive, president, Rite Aid Corp.	U.S.
16	Angela Braly	Chief executive, president, WellPoint	U.S.
17	Marjorie Scardino	Chief executive, Pearson PLC	U.K.
18	Wu Xiaoling	Deputy governor, People's Bank of China	China
19	Brenda Barnes	Chairman, chief executive, Sara Lee Corp.	U.S.
20	Ruth Bader Ginsburg	Supreme court justice	U.S.
21	Oprah Winfrey	Chairman, Harpo	U.S.
22	Margaret Whitman	Chief executive, president, Ebay	U.S.
23	Queen Elizabeth II	Queen	U.K.
24	Melinda Gates	Cofounder, cochairman, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation	U.S.
25	Hillary Rodham Clinton	U.S. senator, New York	U.S.	Click here for: 26-50 51-75 76-100

[bruinbirdman]

The World's Most Powerful Women- by Elizabeth MacDonald and Chana R. Schoenberger

For the second year in a row, Angela Merkel, the first woman to become chancellor of Germany, ranks No. 1 on our list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women. She continued to impress the world with her cool leadership at two back-to-back summits. First, she stuck to her principles, getting G-8 leaders to agree to significant cuts in carbon emissions, among other things. Merkel later corralled European Union countries into an agreement on a treaty to replace the E.U. constitution.

Meanwhile, China's vice premier, Wu Yi (No. 2), continues to help lead a government that oversees an economy whose gross domestic product may soon eclipse Germany's, making it the third-biggest economy in the world. Wu recently stared down U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson when he made myriad demands, including a revaluation of the yuan, in recent strategic economic talks with the U.S.

But China faces enormous challenges in improving its rickety social, legal and economic infrastructure, which now has to contend with an overheated stock market, unsafe and shoddy products and severe pollution.

In Pictures: The World's Most Powerful Women

Women are also making very visible advances in business. In the year since we last ran our ranking, Angela Braly (No. 16) took the helm of insurer WellPoint (nyse: WLP), providing health care coverage to one in 10 Americans; the world's largest money-transfer company, Western Union (nyse: WU), was spun off from First Data (nyse: FDC) under the leadership of Christina Gold (No. 56); and PepsiCo (nyse: PEP)Chief Executive Indra Nooyi (No. 5) added another title, that of chairman.

While there have been plenty of hand-wringing studies arguing that the corporate glass ceiling for women has turned into concrete, we had no difficulty turning up 66 business executives worthy of inclusion on the list. The remaining 34 are mostly in government.

If women aren't being stopped by any ceiling, it still can be argued that they have a tough go on the way to the top. Catalyst, a New York City firm that tracks the progress of women in corporate management positions, reports that women's hold on senior management jobs in the U.S. has stayed essentially flat over the past four years. They account for 15.6% of 10,145 corporate officer positions (chief financial officer, chief information officer or higher) in the 500 largest U.S. corporations.

Our ranking system starts with a list of women who have crossed certain thresholds. Most of them run companies, governments or nonprofits, or are very close to the top. A handful have established power bases in other ways (an entertainment entrepreneur, a judge and an author have been on the list). The power ranking score is based on a composite of visibility (measured by press citations) and economic impact.

The latter, in turn, reflects three things: résumé (career achievements and titles, so a prime minister counts as more powerful than a senator); the size of the economic sphere over which a leader holds sway; and a multiplier that aims to make different financial yardsticks comparable. For example, a chief executive is assigned the company's sales in the economic impact calculation, while a foundation executive is assigned the foundation's assets. The assets get a higher multiplier than sales.

In Pictures: The World's Most Powerful Women

[JohnLongIsland]

another year that the breck girl missed out...

[Brimack34]

Nancy’s got to be pissed. 3rd in line for President and she ends up at #26.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Is Jenna Jameson on the list? < /S >

[Westlander]

And the public should care about these list’s (male or female) because...?

[bruinbirdman]

"And the public should care about these list’s (male or female) because...?"

Because Steve Forbes, advisor to Rudi Jeweliani, has Hillary #25?

yitbos

[TNCMAXQ]

Kind if surprising Rep. Pelosi wasn’t higher. I wonder how they figure she is less powerful even than Judge Ginsburg. Obviously a supreme court justice has enormous impact and influence but i still would have thought the speaker of the House would have more actual power.

[Westlander]

'Darn! I didn't make the list again.'

[WildcatClan]

Oprah is more powerful than Queen Elizabeth or Hitlery. I thought that was silly but then I saw Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Christie Hefner listed. I have to wonder what algorithm they used to solve for powerful. I mean Christie Hefner, lol?

[citizencon]

and the 101th runner-up is... Miss North Carolina!

[WildcatClan]

I think she was #25. Is hard to tell with the mask.

[I still care]

Egads. The CEO for Kraft foods beats out the French Economic Minister. Does that mean Mac and Cheese is more important than the French Economy?

And ebay beats out Hillary. She’s gonna get them for that.

[SkyPilot]

How about we put Hillary in a room with her and see who is more powerful?