GM CEO Mary Barra Takes the No. 1 Spot; Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Remains in the Top 10; Taylor Swift Snags a Bonus Spot on the List at #51
NEW YORK — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 10, 2015 — Today Fortune, published by Time Inc., releases its annual list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. "The process of assembling this annual list has drawn us to ever more compelling people involved in deals and dramas and ever higher stakes…. These insightful and provocative stories reveal how power, leadership, ambition, and yes, gender are playing out in the heart of business today," writes Fortune's Jennifer Reingold.
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See the full list here: http://fortune.com/mpw
#FortuneMPW
THE TOP 10 OF FORTUNE'S 50 MOST POWERFUL WOMEN 2015
1. Mary
Barra, CEO, General Motors
2. Indra Nooyi, CEO and Chairman, PepsiCo
3.
Ginni Rometty, CEO, Chairman and President, IBM
4. Marillyn Hewson,
CEO, Chairman and President, Lockheed Martin
5. Ellen Kullman, CEO
and Chairman, DuPont
6. Abigail Johnson, CEO and President,
Fidelity Investments
7. Meg Whitman, CEO, Chairman, and President,
Hewlett-Packard
8. Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
9. Irene
Rosenfeld, CEO and Chairman, Mondelez International
10. Phebe
Novakovic, CEO and Chairman, General Dynamics
http://fortune.com/mpw
The Most Powerful Women in Business list is compiled by Fortune editors, who consider four criteria: the size and importance of the woman's business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman's career and social and cultural influence.
Video: How Fortune picks its Most Powerful Women: http://for.tn/1KaBUL1
HIGHLIGHTS
-- There are a record number of CEOs on this year's list - 27 - who together control $1 trillion in revenues.
-- Taylor Swift (No. 51) is the youngest person on the list at 25, followed by Marissa Mayer (No. 18), CEO and president of Yahoo, at 40.
-- There are six Fortune 500 companies with two women on this year’s list: Google, Home Depot, IBM, Wal-Mart, JP Morgan and Reynolds American.
-- There are 12 newcomers on the 2015 list, including Swift.
-- The first MPW list was in 1998, and Carly Fiorina took the #1 spot.
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Exclusive Interview with Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm and Producer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Kennedy “is the most prolific female filmmaker in Hollywood, having produced 77 movies in a nearly 40-year career,” writes Fortune’s Michal Lev-Ram. “Her curriculum vitae is chock-full of sky-high-grossing and critically acclaimed blockbusters: Jurassic Park, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and Schindler’s List, to name a few. Collectively these movies have raked in more than $11 billion in worldwide box-office sales and garnered 120 Academy Award nominations…. And yet Kennedy has largely remained in the shadows of the very men who helped propel her career forward—most notably Steven Spielberg. In an industry that often spits out women when they hit 'a certain age,' Kennedy, 62, is finally coming into her own…. And if the new Star Wars movie lives up to its hype, she may well be the most powerful woman in Hollywood too.”
Kennedy tells Fortune: “If I could throw the ball farther than any of the guys that they were looking at to be the quarterback, they wanted me to be the quarterback. You know why? Because they wanted to win the game.”
On rising attention from Disney executives, the press and fans, Kennedy tells Fortune: “I’ve always said that I don’t want to be in front of the camera.”
On turning the reins over to Kennedy, George Lucas tells Fortune:
"I racked my brain to figure out who do I trust and who do I know really
well and is level-headed, who understands the business side of it but
also understands the creative side of it. And finally I banged into it
and said, ‘Oh, my God, it’s Kathy.’”
http://for.tn/1XMGRiR
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The Google Effect: Fortune Interviewed More Than 25 Current and Former Googlers, Now Scattered Across 20 Companies, About What Google Taught Them and What Impelled Them to Leave a Company That Perennially Ranks As the World’s Best Workplace
Fortune's Pattie Sellers writes: "We learned that they gravitate
to companies that are, well, Google-like: mission-driven, data-centric,
and fast-growing, with empowered employees unconstrained by traditional
ways of business building…. Yes, gender does influence what they leave
Google to do. And they require one more thing that they’ve grown
accustomed to: a corporate culture where women have the opportunity to
thrive as readily as men."
