Fortune announced the 2023 edition of the Most Powerful Women in Business list, featuring established and rising leaders from around the globe. Now in its 26th year, the Most Powerful Women celebrates 100 leading business women representing industries including finance, tech, healthcare, telecom, retail, and energy, among others.
This year’s list of the Most Powerful Women in business is the most comprehensive on record: It’s the first time Fortune has had a single worldwide list honoring 100 women. The list’s new global scope and bigger scale recognize the nature of top executives’ work—it spans the planet—as well as the near-record number of women who are leading companies on the Fortune 500, the largest in the U.S. by revenue, and the Fortune Global 500, the largest companies in the world.
In total, the list features 67 women with a CEO title, some of whom only recently stepped into the corner office. Margherita Della Valle became CEO of British telecom Vodafone in April. Sandy Ran Xu took over Chinese e-commerce titan JD.com in May. Vanessa Hudson assumed the CEO job at Australia’s flagship carrier Qantas in September. All are the first women to hold their respective jobs. Other women are making a major impact early in their careers, like 34-year-old Mira Murati, the Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI and Susan Li, Meta’s CFO. Some other execs are leading the world’s most valuable startups including Kim Kardashian, the co-founder of the $4 billion shapewear line Skims.
When CEOs step down, women are getting called to replace them in greater numbers. Fortune notes that in this year’s first half, 106 CEOs worldwide left their jobs. Of the CEO replacements, 13% were women, up from 2.4% in 2018. Fortune writes: “The business world is demanding change, and women leaders are meeting the moment.”
The Top 10 of the 2023 Fortune 100 Most Powerful Women in Business:
- Karen S. Lynch, President and CEO, CVS Health (U.S.)
- Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture (U.S.)
- Mary Barra, Chair and CEO, General Motors (U.S.)
- Jane Fraser, CEO, Citigroup (U.S.)
- Jessica Tan, Executive Director, Co-CEO, Ping An (China)
- Carol Tomé, CEO, UPS (U.S.)
- Emma Walmsley, CEO, GSK (U.K.)
- Ruth Porat, President, CIO, CFO, Alphabet and Google (U.S.)
- Shemara Wikramanayake, Managing Director and CEO, Macquarie (Australia)
- Gail Boudreaux, President and CEO, Elevance Health (U.S.)
For the third consecutive year, Karen S. Lynch, President and CEO of CVS Health, lands the #1 spot as the highest-ranking Fortune Global 500 (#11) company in the world led by a female chief executive. In the past year, CVS Health acquired primary care provider Oak Street Health and home health care specialist Signify Health for a total of $19 billion. The deals are part of a strategy— accelerated with CVS Health’s 2018 acquisition of insurer Aetna—to transform the company formerly known as a drugstore chain and pharmacy benefit manager into a driving force in the healthcare sector.
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