German Chancellor Angela Merkel Tops Forbes List Of Most Powerful Women

Jessica — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:30:00 EDT

Forbes just released its list of this year's 100 most powerful women, and it's a fearsome collection of heads of state, captains of industry, and entertainment giants. Coming in at #1 is Germany's first female Chancellor, Angela Merkel, she of the towering intellect (and towering cleavage). Another notable in the top ten is Indra K. Nooyi, the head of PepsiCo, who is the highest-paid female CEO in America and, as we previously mentioned, makes one-fourteenth of how much Larry Ellison, head of Oracle, pulled in last year. Forbes notes that fewer than 3% of of the country's biggest companies have female CEOs, and while women constitute 46% of the American labor force, they hold only 15% of the top corporate jobs.

But in this unfortunate economic climate, that 15% is still hurting, as Forbes points out that many top women in business, like beleaguered former Morgan Stanley exec Zoe Cruz, have lost their jobs this year. There are, of course, still many impressive business bitches holding it down, including #8 Ho Ching, the head of Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, #18 Mary Sammons, the CEO of Rite Aid, #19 Andrea Jung, the CEO of Avon, and #60 Judy McGrath, the CEO of MTV.

Angela Merkel is also in good company, with stateswomen like Argentinean President #13 Cristina Fernandez and deposed Myanmar Prime Minister/ Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, not to mention our girl Hillary Clinton at #28.

The list isn't all politicians and businesswomen: Meredith Vieira (#61) edges out Katie Couric (62), Barbara Walters (63), Diane Sawyer (65), and Christine Amanpour (#91) to be the most powerful woman in news, and architect Zaha Hadid comes in at #69. Whatever their professions, however, these women are much more impressive feminist icons than Candace Bushnell or Jenna Jameson.

100 Most Powerful Women [Forbes]

Earlier: German Titocracy
the Why Do We Know Lauren Conrad & Not Indra Nooyi?
Zoe Cruz Told Mortgage Traders To "Cut Losses," But They Thought She Was Just High On Crack

Why Do We Know Lauren Conrad & Not Indra Nooyi?

Dodai — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:30:00 EDT

She doesn't live her life in the public eye or weep attractively on MTV, but Indra Nooyi is worth knowing about: She's the highest-paid female CEO in America. Ms. Nooyi, head of PepsiCo, took home a whopping $12.7 million (including $4.5 million in bonus pay) last year. It's serious cash, for sure. But it's one-fourteenth of how much Larry Ellison, head of Oracle, pulled in last year. His salary was a "modest" $1 million, but he had $182 million from vested stock options. A lesson: When you run one of the largest companies in the world, you don't make as much as the next guy… if you're a woman.

Forbes reports (via MSNBC) that when calculating the cash pulled in by male CEOs of America's largest companies, the average take, including salary and bonuses, for all 500 CEOs was $12.8 million — double the female average of $6.5 million. But one of the most interesting things about Ms. Nooyi and some of the other top-earning female CEOs — Andrea Jung (Avon), Anne Mulcahy (Xerox), Christina Gold (Western Union) — is that you never really hear a damn thing about them.

Or maybe you do. Maybe you read the business section and the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. But maybe there just aren't as many stories about Ms. Nooyi and other female CEOs? A Google search turns up 93,100 results for Indra Nooyi; Larry Ellison returns 1,280,000. Lauren Conrad? 2,520,000 (Even Audrina Patridge gets 599,000. Six times Ms. Nooyi's number.) It's not that a Google search proves your worth, or that all those hits make Lauren Conrad a worthwhile person. It's just a way of asking: Why, in our escapist, entertainment-addicted society, do we place so much importance on certain women, when there are other hard-working ladies struggling to keep up with men in global business, where it really counts?

America’s Highest Paid Female CEOs [MSNBC]
Top-Returning Female CEOs (Slideshow) [Forbes]

Jezebel: andrea jung

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Tops Forbes List Of Most Powerful Women

Why Do We Know Lauren Conrad & Not Indra Nooyi?