Merkel takes: Most Powerful Woman crown
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken the crown in Forbes’ annual
list of the world’s most powerful women for the sixth consecutive year.
 The list honors the smartest and toughest female business leaders,
entrepreneurs, investors, scientists, philanthropists and CEOs around
the world. Using four key metrics to determine the list, Forbes
calculates money (net worth, company revenues, or GDP); media presence;
spheres of influence; and impact, an analysis within the context of each
woman’s field (media, technology, business, philanthropy, politics, and
finance) and outside of it. Forbes describes the power list as “the
smartest and toughest female business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors,
scientists, philanthropists and CEOs making their mark in the world
today.”
Candidate
Angela Merkel’s sixth straight placing at number one comes after she
was awarded with the honor of Time’s Person of the Year in 2015, the
first woman to do so in over 29 years. It is the eleventh time the
German Chancellor has been given the number-one spot by the U.S.
magazine.
Hillary Clinton, the US presidential candidate, and Janet Yellen,
chair of the Federal Reserve, were second and third. Two more Americans
take fourth and fifth spot - Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, and General Motors chief executive officer
Mary Barra.
Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, is at
number six and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is at
number 7. Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, who is seeking
to become United Nations secretary-general, was ranked No. 22. U.S. talk
show host Oprah Winfrey is 21st on the list, compared to 12 in 2015,
while Anna Wintour, well-known for her role as editor in chief for Vogue
magazine, is 28th.
China is represented by a record nine women, including Lucy Peng, a
senior executive at e-commerce giant Alibaba and Margaret Chan,
director-general of the World Health Organisation, are the
highest-ranked. Also on the list are Pollyanna Chu, chief executive of
Hong Kong financial services firm Kingston Securities, and China’s first
lady, Peng Liyuan.
The highest ranking Asian on the list is South Korean President Park
Geun-hye at number 12. Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina Wajed is at number
36.
Billionaires
There are 32 chief executives on the list, 12 world leaders and 11
billionaires, including nine who have built billion-dollar companies
from scratch. Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer is the youngest at 41
and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is the oldest at 90. Besides Queen
Elizabeth, other British women Nemat Shafik, deputy governor of the Bank
of England and newcomer Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister.
There was further contention with this year’s placing, with Forbes
opting to dump Taylor Swift, as the organisation steered away from using
celebrities. The publication stressed its deliberate aim to recognise
women who are “calling the shots in the financial markets, and
crisscrossing the globe to broker international agreements and provide
aid.”
The magazine added: “Their accomplishments are formidable on their
own, and even more so given how hard it can be to establish inroads into
industries and job titles traditionally dominated by men.”
According to Forbes, statistics on women in positions of power remain
fairly bleak with the latest survey by Catalyst, a nonprofit that tracks
gender parity in the workplace finding “women occupy a measly 4% of
corner offices at S&P 500 companies. And they hold only 25% of executive
or senior-level jobs in those same firms.”
Findings
Forbes quotes the Pew Research Center’s findings that the number of
women who are world leaders, presidents or heads of state have more than
doubled from 2015. This is a positive trend on the progress that has
been made in a short period of time. |
