Thursday, October 7, 2010

If you’re so POWERFUL, why aren’t you Famous?

female_body_building

Forbes Magazine has just released their list of the top 100 most powerful women in the world. (Of course I know the picture above doesn’t have anything to do with that – I just couldn’t help myself.)  I’ll have to admit that I had to Google about half of the top 25 just to know who they are.

Forbes actually created four lists, one each for politics, business, media and lifestyle, then combined them via some esoteric formula to come up with their top 100. 

The annual list has undergone a slight change in the way it rates people. It took influence into account for the first time.

Moira Forbes, vice president of ForbesWoman, said, ‘The women on our list, through their respective realms of power and influence, are shaping many of the agenda- setting conversations of our day, and have become dynamic catalysts for driving meaningful change across the world.”

The powerful women
The list has placed First Lady Michelle Obama in the first position.
However, instead of calculating her and her husband's personal wealth or money earned in the last year, Forbes decided to list the national budget in the category, which is $3.5 trillion.  Do you think that might have tilted the scales a bit?

Anyway, here are the Top 25, in the order that Forbes ranked them:

1. Michelle Obama
2. Irene Rosenfeld
3. Oprah Winfrey
4. Angela Merkel
5. Hillary Clinton
6. Indra Nooyi
7. Lady Gaga
8. Gail Kelly
9. Beyonce Knowles
10. Ellen DeGeneres
11. Nancy Pelosi
12. Angela Braly
13. Janet Napolitano
14. Cynthia Carroll
15. Sheila Bair
16. Sarah Palin
17. Mary Schapiro
18. Ellen Kullman
19. Sonia Sotomayor
20. Ursula Burns
21. Angelina Jolie
22. Katie Couric
23. Kathleen Sebelius
24. Anne Lauvergeon
25. Elena Kagan

Do you know which is the head of a nuclear energy corporation, or which heads up the FDIC? Who runs Pepsi and which is the CEO of Kraft? Which South Africa born woman now heads a huge Australia-based banking conglomerate? 

Opinion is a funny thing – even though I only recognized about half of the ladies on the list, I am convinced that Forbes got their order all wrong.

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