The Top 50 Women In Business Worldwide

FT top 50 women in world business
Introduction by Alison Maitland. Profiles by Sarah Halls
Published: September 25 2009 18:37 | Last updated: September 25 2009 18:37
This inaugural ranking comes as the global crisis has turned a spotlight on male domination of the corporate world: would we be better off if more women were in charge? Some prominent people think so. Helen Alexander, first female president of the CBI, the UK employers’ body, says diversity is needed to prevent “groupthink” by white male boards. And 17 leading businessmen, including the chairmen of Anglo American, BP and Tesco, recently called for faster progress in appointing women to senior positions, saying the economy needed the best talent more than ever. They equated the urgency of the issue to that of climate change and poverty.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
Meet the panellists - Sep-25

Countries where women executives fare best - Sep-25

Do top women get the most precarious jobs? - Sep-25

Expert advice for those making the climb - Sep-25

Interactive graphic: top 50 women in world business - Sep-25

FT top 50 women to watch - Sep-25

Our report celebrates women business leaders around the world. The fact is that their numbers remain tiny. Just 3 per cent of Fortune 500 chief executives are women. Across Europe, only 10 per cent of board directors of the largest companies are female (quotas have made Norway the exception, with more than 40 per cent) and the numbers are even lower in Asia. This is all the more surprising given the substantial evidence that better gender balance has a positive impact on performance. Studies by Catalyst and McKinsey in the US and Europe have found a correlation between the number of women in a company’s leadership and the company’s profitability. Financial outperformance is most significant when there is a “critical mass” of women – 30 per cent or more. And Nick Wilson of Leeds University Business School has found that having women on the board can reduce a company’s risk of bankruptcy by 20 per cent.

Top 50 women in world business

Interactive feature: Explore the different themes and categories that connect the top 50 women in the business world. Also view a list of top women to watch.

Should we expect the handful of female chief executives to lead the charge on gender? Some do preside over deep cultural change. Take Xerox, where one-third of the management team are women and where Anne Mulcahy recently handed over to Ursula Burns, the first black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. But a small group of women chief executives – or women on boards – cannot be asked to carry all the weight. Change requires willing leadership from the male majority. The financial crisis has, at least, made the business and moral case for change more apparent than ever.

What about better governance? The collapse of some of the world’s biggest banks has been blamed partly on directors’ failure to ask tough questions. A study by The Conference Board of Canada found that boards with women directors paid greater attention than all-male boards to audit and risk controls. And a US study showed that boards with more women directors recorded better attendance and were more assiduous at monitoring areas such as CEO performance.

Alison Maitland is an FT contributor and co-author of ‘Why Women Mean Business’, published this month in paperback

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First among equals

1

Name: Indra Nooyi
Nationality: Indian
Age: 53
Company: PepsiCo
Sector: Beverages
Location: US
3-year TSR*: -1.5%

Indra Nooyi, chairman and chief executive of PepsiCo, puts much of her success down to place: “Where I am has a lot to do with the United States. I think the United States represents the greatest meritocracy in the world.” It’s the US, of course, where PepsiCo started, with the flagship cola brand, before growing into a global leader in the food and drink sector. Its portfolio includes such snack standards as Lay’s (Walkers in the UK) and Doritos, as well as the kitchen staples made by Tropicana and Quaker Oats.

Nooyi is credited with putting the fizz into profits at the company, which has seen annual revenue increase during her tenure. But she’s quick to dispel any notion that she did it on her own. “So many people here mentored me … the US is a country that likes to see others succeed. That’s been my experience in the last 30 years.”

Nooyi was born in southern India and held managerial positions at Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical group, and Mettur Beardsell, a textile company, before heading to the US to earn a master’s degree in private and public management from Yale. The move led to a profound shift in her thinking. “You come from India off the boat, you go to business school and you realise that you come from a fairly sheltered life,” she says. “I learnt everything over again.”

On graduating in 1980, she took key marketing and strategy roles at Asea Brown Boveri, Boston Consulting Group and Motorola before joining PepsiCo in 1994. She rose quickly, becoming the chief financial officer in 2001 and chief executive in 2006. En route to the boardroom, Nooyi spearheaded the acquisition of Tropicana and the merger with Quaker Oats.

According to Hindu tradition, Indra means “god of war”, and Nooyi has had to battle adversity to lead PepsiCo through the downturn. She says people look for three things at times like this: realism hand-in-hand with optimism, visibility (“CEOs in terms of downturns should never hide”) and a sense that the organisation will take whatever actions are necessary in good time – “as opposed to after you hit a wall”.

Along the way, Nooyi has laid off 3,300 employees and offered $6bn to buy PepsiCo’s two biggest bottlers. She is also championing a move to healthier products and is overseeing a push into philanthropy: PepsiCo is working with the British government to develop a programme to bring “highly nutritious snacks to the undernourished”, a project already in early development in Nigeria, Mexico and India.

As for life after PepsiCo, she is quick to dismiss reports that she might go into politics. “In the future I would like to give back to the [US, but] I have been very clear in saying I am not in the politics arena at all.” She credits her family as being integral to her success – and she remains integral to their lives. “At the weekends, I’m cooking at home in the kitchen,” she says. “I’m doing everything that normal people do.”

*3-year TSR = total shareholder return from June 30 2006 to June 30 2009. 1-year TSR measured from June 30 2008

2

Name: Andrea Jung
Nationality: Canadian
Age: 51
Company: Avon Products
Sector: Personal goods
Location: US
3-year TSR: -10.5%

“Ding-Dong! Avon calling” rang the advertising slogan of the cosmetics and perfume giant in the 1960s. Fast-forward to 2009 and the brand is running commercials around the Super Bowl and sending forth actress Reese Witherspoon as its “global ambassador”.

This is part of chairman and chief executive Andrea Jung’s idea of “self-reinvention”, which she believes is crucial to her future plans for Avon. “I think that whatever made me successful in the last few years may not be enough to make me successful in the next few years,” she says.

The downturn has been kind to Avon, where revenues have topped $10bn and sales force recruitment has picked up significantly as people look to supplement their income. But Jung, a Canadian who succeeded Charles R. Perrin in 1999, has not always enjoyed such buoyant times. Four years ago, she steered Avon out of one of its most difficult periods on her watch.

She recalls: “2005 was a challenging year for the total company. We really put forth a very aggressive and bold sustainable growth plan that involved some significant cost-cutting and transformational initiatives to be reinvested back into the brand.” Since then, Jung has “incrementally” invested an additional $700m into brand and recruitment advertising and modernising the direct-selling business model. She had taken a similar approach in the late 1990s when Avon’s business in Russia was severely affected by the devaluation of the ruble.

Her ability to persevere is a testament, she says, to her upbringing. “Early in my career, I was in a job that wasn’t very interesting and I said to my parents: ‘I don’t love this, I think I might quit.’ And they said: ‘Are you kidding, you can’t quit! You’ve got to start at the bottom and move your way up.’”

Jung says her biggest source of inspiration comes from Avon’s six million sales representatives worldwide. “These are businesswomen who really started in many cases with nothing, and some of them have become really admirable entrepreneurs.” Although Avon is billed as the “Company for Women”, its diverse portfolio encompasses male grooming ranges, and a small portion of the sales associates are men.

As for women in leadership, Jung, a graduate of Princeton, says the glass ceiling is beginning to “shatter”. But she’s wary of government intervention in this area. Looking to the next generation of executives, she encourages them to be passionate and bold. “I think this is not a time to hunker down and be defensive, I think it’s a time to be offensive if you want to win market share and strengthen your company.”

Jung sits on the boards of Apple and GE. On a philanthropic and personal note, Avon supports Breast Cancer Care, which has raised $160m since its inception. Jung’s mother was diagnosed with cancer at a hospital that had received donations from the charity; she is now cancer-free. “That is when you realise, wow, this is not a job,” Jung says. “My decade of life’s work has repaid me 1,000 times over.”

3

Name: Anne Lauvergeon
Nationality: French
Age: 50
Company: Areva
Sector: Electricity
Location: France
3-year TSR: -13%

A female executive in an industry dominated by hazard signs, Geiger counters and safety-goggled men has always been an unusual sight. But this has never bothered Anne Lauvergeon, nicknamed “Atomic Anne”. She says she “created” Areva, overseeing the 2001 merger of Cogema and Framatome into a nuclear engineering group in which the French government owns a stake of more than 90 per cent.

A physics graduate, Lauvergeon started her career in 1983 at the French steelmaker Usinor before joining the French atomic energy body, the CEA. In 1988, she became deputy director of the General Mining Council, a move that led to her working on international economic issues for President François Mitterrand. A short stint in the financial services industry followed when she became a partner of Lazard Frères in Paris in 1995, before moving on to Alcatel in 1997 to oversee its energy and nuclear interests. Within a couple of years, she had changed portfolios again, after being chosen by the French government to run the nuclear fuel group Cogema.

As chief executive of Areva, which reported a turnover of €13.2bn last year, she is responsible for 75,000 staff, spanning five continents. “You cannot drive 75,000 people without a sense of leadership,” she says, adding that her management style is direct and transparent. “For instance, we take all the decisions in an executive committee after presentations, so it means that there is no hidden agenda.”

From next year, gender quotas will be introduced. Currently 35 per cent of engineers in Areva are female but this level of representation does not extend to executive ranks. “We have defined an internal rule so it means in 2010 we are going to have a minimum of 20 per cent of every committee in the company with women.”

Her agenda for inclusiveness does not stop at gender, however. Lauvergeon wants Areva to become a diverse company on all levels because, by definition, her “customers are diverse”.

Lauvergeon says she sees nuclear energy as the “future” and intends to convert the sceptics. “For a long time the nuclear industry has not listened to the critics, to the fears of the opponents,” she says. “I think you have no sustainable development without deep dialogue with the stakeholders.”

In 2009, the group researched new commercial opportunities in Britain, South Africa and the US as well as ventures in other countries. Recently, it announced the sale of a 15 per cent stake to strategic partners to help fund investment.

Next year, Lauvergeon aims to continue Areva’s 10 per cent annual growth in turnover (after a drop in 2008 net income due to the construction of a nuclear reactor in Finland) as well as to maintain recruitment levels and manage the development of Areva’s portfolio.

Despite sometimes wishing for a clone of herself to help cope with the workload, Lauvergeon still finds time to get her six-year-old child ready for school: “I started my morning with my son at 8am,” she says.

4

Name: Irene Rosenfeld
Nationality: American
Age: 56
Company: Kraft Foods
Sector: Food producers
Location: US
3-year TSR: -8.7%

When asked to explain her success, Irene Rosenfeld cites her childhood experience as a school basketball captain, when she regularly led her team to victory. The chief executive of Kraft since 2006, she became chairman after Altria Group spun off the food maker in March 2007.

In an industry that is prone to fluctuations, Rosenfeld’s marketing acumen has kept her ahead of rivals. Ninety-nine per cent of US homes stock Kraft products, which include such global brands as Oreo, Philadelphia, Dairylea and Toblerone. “Our brands are typically staples of the pantry and favourites of the family,” she says. According to Kraft, during the downturn, consumers are becoming more financially discerning and opting to eat at home, a trend that has helped bolster the company’s revenues, which reached $42bn in 2008.

A veteran of the food industry, Rosenfeld has led the expansion of Kraft into emerging markets such as Argentina, Brazil and China. And this month, she made a daring $10.2bn bid for Cadbury. Although the British confectioner snubbed Kraft, Rosenfeld has not ruled out a hostile takeover.

When she joined the company in 2006, Rosenfeld says she handed more power to local managers, helping the group’s turnaround. “Prior to that, a lot of the decisions were being made out of HQ, so we missed opportunities to understand local tastes.” Her biggest achievement to date, she says, was mobilising her 98,000 “very talented” employees by giving them a “road map” to follow.

Next year she plans to invest in the brand portfolio, keep costs down, recruit and train staff and look for opportunities to expand the company’s “footprint in developing markets”. “Three years ago we set out to create new Kraft foods … despite a very challenging macro environment, I think we are well positioned as we look to the future.”

5

Name: Güler Sabanci
Nationality: Turkish
Age: 54
Company: Sabanci Group
Sector: General industrials
Location: Turkey
3-year TSR: 11.6%

Güler Sabanci is Turkey’s queen of finance. Her family-owned company, the Sabanci Group, is a conglomerate with interests ranging from banking to food to tyre manufacture.

The company was founded by her grandfather, Haci Omer, in the early 1940s, then passed on to Sakip, her uncle. Güler became chief executive in 2004. In the course of its history, the business has transformed itself from a small cotton company to a billion-dollar conglomerate, with operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and in north and south America. Consolidated revenue in 2008 was $15.3bn.

When faced with challenging situations, Sabanci often relies on “search conferences”, a methodology used in business schools to generate ideas, find flaws in strategies and ways to fix them. “I don’t have all the answers, but together we can have all the answers,” she says.

She used this approach when founding the Sabanci University in 1994, calling a search conference of academics and businessmen from around the world. For four days, the 52 delegates discussed the challenges of creating a modern university for the next generation.

Sabanci has this advice for aspiring executives: “It is important what you are doing but it is much more important with whom you are doing it.” And she challenges the perception of Turkey as a country that holds back women. “The issue of gender in business, it’s not only in my country, it’s all around the world. If we don’t focus on gender but focus on the results, on the targets, on the projects, on the achievements, we will see it is less of an issue.”

6

Name: Gail Kelly
Nationality: South African
Age: 53
Company: Westpac
Sector: Banks
Location: Australia
3-year TSR: 12.2%

A few years ago, Gail Kelly described to a Melbourne newspaper the moment she realised the career for which she’d studied – teaching – was not for her. She had snapped at a young boy over a small matter and afterward “stood there and watched him go and felt so ashamed of myself. I was allowing my unhappiness to affect who I was. I remember sitting at the bus stop that afternoon in Johannesburg thinking, ‘This has got to change, I’m 22 years old, I’m one-year married, how can I be so unhappy?’ But it was quite a seminal moment for me. And I mention it quite a lot to my own people when I try to make a point about how you need to do work that you love.”

Kelly left the job and started work as a teller at Nedcor Bank. Her talent for figures was quickly spotted and she was selected to embark upon an accelerated training programme.

In 1997, the family moved to Australia, where Kelly progressed through several senior management roles at Commonwealth Bank before being headhunted by St George Bank, where she became managing director. In 2008, she was appointed chief executive of Westpac. Later that year, she announced that Westpac would buy St George, in a deal that created Australia’s largest mortgage lender and its biggest bank by market value.

7

Name: Annika Falkengren
Nationality: Swedish
Age: 47
Company: SEB
Sector: Banks
Location: Sweden
3-year TSR: - 61.9%

Annika Falkengren has been with SEB for most of her working life: she began her career there as a trainee in 1987, worked in the trading and capital markets divisions until 2000, and headed several global departments before becoming chief executive in late 2005.

In 2006, reflecting on working women, she told the FT: “In Sweden, to be a truly successful woman you should have a good job, look after your children – of which you should have three – make good food, go to the spa, see your female friends and take care of your husband.

“When I look at my career, there were sacrifices. Between 30 and 40 I did not have any children [she had a daughter in 2005] … People don’t really talk about it in Sweden, but you cannot do it all and you cannot get it all.”

She is now focused on steering the bank through the recession. It had to write down the value of its eastern European assets this summer, but is cushioned by a robust tier one capital ratio.

8

Name: Yoshiko Shinohara
Nationality: Japanese
Age: 74
Company: Temp Holdngs
Sector: Support services
Location: Japan
3-year TSR: N/A

When Yoshiko Shinohara launched Tempstaff in her native Japan in 1973, she wasn’t worried about the possible humiliation of failure: “Most of my female friends were housewives, and they wouldn’t have cared a bit even if I failed in business,” she told BusinessWeek in 2004. The idea of a temporary staffing agency was a novelty in Japan at the time; Shinohara had first learnt of the concept while working in Australia and decided to try her hand at it upon returning home and realising that “without any special qualification, I … would end up by serving tea or just being a clerical assistant. My prospects looked extremely gloomy.”

At times, Shinohara has had to deal with ingrained attitudes to women – one businessman compared Tempstaff to the work of an okiya, an agent who dispatches geishas – but she’s taken it in her stride. In October last year, Tempstaff merged with another Japanese group, People Staff, to create Temp Holdings.

9

Name: Dong Mingzhu
Nationality: Chinese
Age: 56
Company: Gree Electric Appliances
Sector: Household goods & construction
Location: China
3-year TSR: 529.5%

“I never miss. I never admit mistakes and I am always correct.” These are the no-nonsense words of Dong Mingzhu, the boss of China’s largest air-conditioning manufacturer, in an interview in Chief Executive Magazine in 2007.

Nicknamed “Sister Dong” by her employees at Gree, she cuts a formidable presence, swiftly dismissing those who do not pull their weight. But her methods have met with success: Dong has transformed the state-owned enterprise into a global player; in 2008, turnover reached £3.5bn. She said last month that “this financial crisis is a moment for Gree to reorientate itself. The crisis is helping the world to better understand China and the Chinese people at a time when Chinese products have been viewed as low-price and low-quality.

“It is a golden chance for overseas customers to recognise that they can pay less for the best quality machines.”

10

Name: Ho Ching
Nationality: Singaporean
Age: 56
Company: Temasek Holdings
Sector: Financial services
Location: Singapore
3-year TSR: -2%

Ho Ching has been running Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state investment company and one of the world’s oldest sovereign wealth funds, since 2002.

Her tenure has not been without controversy – starting at home. As the wife of Singapore’s prime minister, Ho has weathered speculation that the job offer had more to do with family ties than her own qualifications. Still, the company chairman said at the time that she was the best woman for the job, and cited her appetite for risk.

Under Ho, who holds a masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Temasek has bought stakes in China Construction Bank Corporation and Bank of China. Its ventures into western banks such as Merrill Lynch – in which it became the largest shareholder – and Barclays have yielded losses due to the recession. But this has not deterred Ho, who has said Temasek is open to new opportunities with western financial groups – if, she told the FT, “the opportunity comes and it looks attractive”.

Her plans to retire this year had to be put on hold when US businessman Chip Goodyear withdrew his candidacy as her successor.

11

Name: Patricia Ann Woertz
Nationality: American
Age: 56
Company: Archer Daniels Midland
Sector: Food producers
Location: US
3-year TSR: -32.2%

On Patricia Woertz’s first day as chief executive at ADM, a vice-president there asked her what she brought to the company. Not exactly a welcoming question, but then again, the century-old agribusiness was not accustomed to outsiders taking executive roles. A certified accountant by training, the unapologetically ambitious Woertz was hired after retiring from an executive vice-president position at Chevron. Still, she wasn’t offended. “I thought that was an honest question,” she told Fortune magazine later that year.

During her tenure, which began in 2006, sales at the group have swelled. Her successes there have borne out her decision to step down from Chevron, partly in pursuit of a CEO post. “I decided to join a board or two so it kind of came up that way,” she told the FT. “I was immediately intrigued.”

Woertz told Fortune that it was thanks to her husband, a logistics consultant, that she was able to put so much energy into her career. The couple have three children.

12

Name: Ofra Strauss
Nationality: Israeli
Age: 49
Company: Strauss Group
Sector: Food producers
Location: Israel
3-year TSR: 24%

What started as a tiny Israeli dairy farm in the mid-1930s had turned, by the time Ofra Strauss was growing up, into a household name, known nationally for its cheeses and ice cream. In the subsequent decades, Strauss watched her father develop the Strauss Group into a global entity, including tie-ups with Danone and Unilever.

By the time Ofra took over, in 1996, the company was Israel’s second biggest food and beverage group, thanks in part to the purchase of Elite, a coffee and chocolate giant. Looking to strengthen further the group’s portfolio, Strauss has acquired several brands and expanded abroad, while managing to integrate Elite. Sales in 2008 topped NIS6.2bn (£1bn). And its product lines are expanding, with moves into packaged salads and salty snacks.

13

Name: Antonia Ax:son Johnson
Nationality: Swedish
Age: 66
Company: Axel Johnson
Sector: General industrials
Location: Sweden
3-year TSR: N/A

“I have often thought about the women in this story of three generations of men,” says Antonia Johnson of the family business, Swedish industrials group Axel Johnson. “All three women were foreigners – my great grandmother was German, my grandmother was English-American born in Shanghai and my mother was Brazilian. They brought an international dimension, with discussions that took the business out into other countries.”

Today, with Johnson at the helm, the company is a global operation in its core industries of coal, steel, shipping, retailing, information technology and real estate. Johnson succeeded her father as chairman in 1982. In addition to running the business, she is actively involved in philanthropy and politics, and sits on various corporate boards.

14

Name: Brenda Barnes
Nationality: American
Age: N/A
Company: Sara Lee
Sector: Food producers
Location: US
3-year TSR: -21.1%

In 1997, Brenda Barnes turned her back on her job as president of PepsiCo North America to bring up her three children. It was as much a surprise to the corporate world as her return, seven years later, when she was hired by Sara Lee, the food and household-goods manufacturer, as its chief operating officer; she became chairman and chief executive a year after that.

Barnes’s stint at home inspired her idea of “returnships”, paid internships at Sara Lee for those looking to return to employment after prolonged periods out of work.

Interviewed about women entering the workplace, she said: “Women run this society. They’re running the schools. They’re running the communities. They’re running charities. They’re doing PTAs. They’re doing all kinds of things that keep society going. That should not be undervalued by them or anybody they’re going to interview with.

“From a professional side,” she said of her own time out, “I felt like I went to graduate school.”

15

Name: Angela Ahrendts
Nationality: American
Age: 49
Company: Burberry
Sector: Personal goods
Location: UK
3-year TSR: -6.1%

Angela Ahrendts has mastered the art of turning round a troubled brand. Before taking over at Burberry from Rose Marie Bravo in 2006, Ahrendts worked at Donna Karan and Liz Claiborne, reviving the fortunes of the fashion houses through diversification.

While at Liz Claiborne, Ahrendts had been told that she could not expect to be a candidate to replace Paul Charron, the then chief executive. She left. As one insider noted at the time, “Liz Claiborne’s loss is Burberry’s gain.”

Though demand has slowed in some markets, the 153-year-old Burberry brand this autumn entered the FTSE 100 (following Thomson Reuters’ delisting in London). In 2007, the company courted controversy when it shut its Yorkshire and Wales factories in favour of cheaper production in China, despite protests from the Prince of Wales. Still, this summer Ahrendts told the FT that cost-cutting in the recession would have to be borne by the back end of the business: “We’ve told investors [that we’ll] not aggressively cut anything that’s consumer-facing.”

16

Name: Nancy McKinstry
Nationality: American
Age: 50
Company: Wolters Kluwer
Sector: Media
Location: Netherlands
3-year TSR: -17.1%

Last year, when CNN asked Nancy McKinstry why there weren’t more women running companies, the US-born chief executive of Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer made a distinction between Europe and the US. “I think for a female, particularly in some of the European countries, it’s even more difficult to reach the top because of some of the socioeconomic and the cultural factors,” she said. “In some countries, there isn’t really an economic reason for many women to stay in the workforce, particularly after they have children.” But in the US, “there is a lot more economic motivation for women to work and for them to excel within a corporate setting.”

McKinstry took the job at Wolters Kluwer in 2003 when sales were at an all-time low and embarked on a cost-cutting exercise. “I’m very analytical,” she told CNN. “I really believe strongly in getting out there and talking to as many of our employees and customers as I can, and then using that as a form of stimulation to say: ‘What are we doing right?’; ‘What do we need to improve on?’”

17

Name: Cynthia Carroll
Nationality: American
Age: N/A
Company: Anglo American
Sector: Mining
Location: UK/SA
3-year TSR: -26.5%

In 2007, New Jersey-born Cynthia Carroll became the first non-South African to take the reins at Anglo American – and become one of three women then heading FTSE 100 companies. During her tenure at the UK mining giant, Carroll has faced some difficult choices including the suspension of the dividend. “We thought long and hard about that before making that decision,” she told a South African trade journal. “On the other hand, we wanted to preserve … major projects and develop them for delivery in the next couple of years when the upturn comes.”

18

Name: Christina Gold
Nationality: Canadian
Age: 62
Company: Western Union
Sector: Financial services
Location: US
1-year TSR: -33.5%

Since 2002, Christina Gold has been CEO of Western Union, the money-transfer group. The former president of Avon North America runs a company used by an estimated 175 million immigrants to send money home. With telecommunications acumen gleaned from her former stint as president and chief executive of Excel Communications, Gold spearheaded Western Union’s mobile money transfer, updating traditional practices.

Under her leadership, Western Union has also teamed up with USAid to help fund the African Diaspora Marketplace, a competition that promotes, through grants, partnerships between Africans living in the US and those running fledgling businesses in sub-Saharan Africa.

19

Name: Cheung Yan
Nationality: Chinese
Age: 52
Company: Nine Dragons Paper
Sector: Forestry/paper
Location: China
3-year TSR: -15.5%

Three years ago, Cheung Yan made the news around the globe when she emerged as China’s richest person – and the world’s wealthiest self-made woman. And yet she said soon after: “To me, personal wealth doesn’t mean anything more than if it’s sufficient for my daily use – that will be good enough.” The eldest of eight children raised in modest circumstances in north-eastern China, Cheung’s big break came with a move to Hong Kong in 1985. Over the subsequent two decades, she built her waste-paper trading business from a $4,000 investment into a multi-billion-dollar concern. When it listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2006, her wealth was estimated at £2bn.

In 2007, after a move to Los Angeles, Cheung told CNN’s Talk Asia that her gender hadn’t held her back – or promoted her unduly: “In any business transaction, it’s not sex that makes the difference. It’s actually that you should use your intelligence to win. Whoever has the intelligence will win the game. For the past 20 years, I have been very pleased that I was able to build this success and it was not just because I was a woman.”

20

Name: Carol Meyrowitz
Nationality: American
Age: 55
Company: TJX
Sector: General retailers
Location: US
3-year TSR: 43.3%

Carol Meyrowitz has been a rising star in TJX since she joined the discount retailer in 1987. Twenty years and several senior management roles later – as well as a stint consulting for the group – she became chief executive in 2007.

TJX has operations in the US, Canada and Europe. Its businesses in Europe, where it is known as TK Maxx, are popular with consumers looking for value-for-money fashion. “There’s no doubt TJX has been one of the best performers throughout this downturn,’’ retail analyst Ken Perkins said this month after Meyrowitz said September sales were looking strong.

21

Name: Stine Bosse
Nationality: Danish
Age: 48
Company: TrygVesta
Sector: Non-life insurance
Location: Denmark
3-year TSR: 7.7%

Four years ago, Stine Bosse, the chief executive of Norway’s biggest insurer, agreed to answer questions from FT readers about women in business. When one asked whether British women were too polite, she responded: “I think it’s good to be polite. But if you want influence at the top, it’s part of the game to be polite and direct at the same time.”

Bosse, who trained as a lawyer, also told FT readers she had to overcome shyness in order to succeed at TrygVesta, which she joined in 1988. In 2005, four years after she became chief executive, the group went public; last year, revenues climbed 4 per cent, to $3.3bn.

22

Name: Vinita Bali
Nationality: Indian
Age: 51
Company: Britannia Industries
Sector: Food producers
Location: India
3-year TSR: 34.2%

When Vinita Bali, head of India’s Britannia Industries, learnt last year that her company’s salt had been ranked second in a national market survey, she shrugged and told business magazine Rediff: “If consumers feel that a particular salt is the best food brand in the country, you accept that verdict. This is a consumer democracy.”

Bali has been in the food production business long enough to know what to get worked up about – or not. In the 1980s and 1990s, she shuttled between Cadbury and Coca-Cola, occupying key marketing roles in India, the UK, South Africa and across South America. Her opportunity to take the leadership role at Britannia came after the controversial resignation of Sunil Alagh in 2003.

23

Name: Zhang Xin
Nationality: Chinese
Age: 44
Company: SOHO China
Sector: Real estate investment & services
Location: China
1-year TSR: 16.8%

Zhang Xin’s is a classic rags-to-riches story. Raised in a poor Hong Kong household, she once worked on assembly lines to earn a living. But after moving to the UK to take a degree at Sussex University followed by a masters at Cambridge, she was employed by several big-name investment banks on Wall Street.

In 1995, Xin and her husband founded SOHO China, an acronym for “small office, home office”. The couple have since built a property empire, catering to China’s nouveaux riches. Its portfolio consists of residential and commercial developments, which have a reputation for contemporary design. Speaking to BusinessWeek in 2004, she said: “Wherever there is ugliness and messiness, that is the place we can make a difference.”

24

Name: Monika Ribar
Nationality: Swiss
Age: 50
Company: Panalpina
Sector: Industrial transportation
Location: Switzerland
3-year TSR: -16.7%

Promoted to chief executive in 2006 after only a year as the company’s chief financial officer, Monika Ribar’s tenure at Panalpina has been characterised by strong leadership and a drive for expansion. The air and ocean freight company operates in more than 80 countries and employs 14,000 people. In an interview with a German trade journal a year into the top job, Ribar said: “I am certainly not one of those people who agonise over every movement of the share price. After all, value is only created for employees, customers and shareholders if the company can survive in the long term.”

25

Name: Nahed Taher
Nationality: Saudi
Age: 45
Company: Gulf One Investment Bank
Sector: Financial services
Location: Bahrain
3-year TSR: N/A

Nahed Taher is co-founder and chief executive of Gulf One. She was also the first woman to make it to the top of a Saudi bank. But even before that she was breaking barriers. After earning a PhD in economics at Lancaster University in 2001, she turned down a job at the International Monetary Fund, returned to her country and became the first woman promoted into the executive team of National Commercial Bank, the biggest bank in the Middle East.

Taher was asked by CNN in 2007 whether she found it strange that she could sign multi-million-dollar deals in Saudi Arabia but not drive to the office. “I will leave this to my dearest King Abdullah to decide,” she said. “I cannot go against the wind, but driving for women is definitely a necessity now, it’s becoming an economic need.”

How the rankings were judged

All rankings are subjective to some degree, but our aim was to make the Top 50 more than a simple list of the best-known, most prominent or most influential women in world business, writes Andrew Hill. We underpinned the expert jury’s choices with information on the ranked women’s performance and durability, much of it supplied by Egon Zehnder International, the executive recruitment group. We then used a range of factors to assess the candidates. Biographical information obviously played a part. So did data on the size of the company (turnover and number of employees), its scope and complexity (did it, for instance, operate in multiple countries or sectors?) and the competitive landscape. Women running companies with a multinational reach were likely to rank more highly than those in charge of nationally focused groups.

Our panellists decided early in their discussion that the ranking should focus on executives managing the controlling company in any group. That’s a distinction that can be hard to make – particularly in privately held or state-owned holding companies – but it ruled out senior executives such as Daniela Riccardi, Procter & Gamble’s president of greater China, and Ana Patricia Botín of Banesto. The panel acknowledged that these women – and others like them – oversee units that are sometimes larger and more complex than many individual companies.

Tenure was obviously important. Carol Ann Bartz of Yahoo, Ursula Burns at Xerox and Chanda Kochhar at ICICI Bank are in powerful positions. But they cannot be judged as candidates for the FT ranking until they have served at least 12 months in the role.

Finally, we used total shareholder return to gauge corporate performance. This measure varies according to the country, sector and characteristics of the company. It also cannot, by definition, be applied to privately held or government-owned companies. But that is where the experience and judgment of our panel came into play.

Andrew Hill is an associate editor

26

Name: Kate Swann
Company: WH Smith
Sector: General retailers
Location: UK
3-year TSR: 17.5%

27

Name: Li Xiaolin
Company: China Power International Development
Sector: Electricity
Location: China
3-year TSR: -8.5%

28

Name: Chu Lam Yiu
Company: Huabao International Holdings
Sector: Chemicals
Location: China
3-year TSR: 226.7%

29

Name: Chua Sock Koong
Company: Singapore Telecommunications
Sector: Fixed-line telecoms
Location: Singapore
3-year TSR: 51.8%

30

Name: Angela Fick Braly
Company: WellPoint
Sector: Healthcare equipment & services
Location: US
3-year TSR: -30.1%

31

Name: Lisa Jayne Morgan
Company: Game Group
Sector: General retailers
Location: UK
3-year TSR: 93.5%

32

Name: Ruby McGregor-Smith
Company: Mitie Group
Sector: Support services
Location: UK
3-year TSR: 10.2%

33

Name: Susan Ivey
Company: Reynolds American
Sector: Tobacco
Location: US
3-year TSR: -19.2%

34

Name: Cristina Stenbeck
Company: Investment AB Kinnevik
Sector: Financial services
Location: Sweden
3-year TSR: -12.6%

35

Name: Lynn Laverty Elsenhans
Company: Sunoco
Sector: Oil & gas production
Location: US
3-year TSR: -64.1%

Who missed out and why

Contenders for 2010 and beyond
(Not considered in this ranking because their tenure as CEO was less than 12 months)

● Carol Ann Bartz, Yahoo (US)
● Ursula Burns, Xerox (US)
● Chanda Kochhar, ICICI Bank (India)
● Ellen Kullman, DuPont (US)
● Monica Mondardini, L’Espresso (Italy)
● Margaret Ma-Yee Ko Leung, Hang Seng Bank (Hong Kong)
● Elisabetta Oliveri, Sirti (Italy)
● Laura Sen, BJS Wholesale Club (US)

Lieutenants
(Not considered in this ranking because they are below CEO level or head majority-controlled companies, subsidiaries or divisions)

● Dawn Airey, Five TV (UK)
● Ana Patricia Botín, Banesto (Spain)
● Patrizia Grieco, Olivetti (Italy)
● Lubna Olayan, Olayan Financing (Saudi Arabia)
● Preetha Reddy, Apollo Hospitals (India)
● Amina Rustamani, Tecom Business Parks (UAE)
● Dominique Senequier, Axa Private Equity (France)
● Mian Mian Yang, Haier Group (China)

36

Name: Harriet Green
Company: Premier Farnell
Sector: Support services
Location: UK
3-year TSR: -25.6%

37

Name: Ines Kolmsee
Company: SKW
Sector: Industrial metals & mining
Location: Germany
3-year TSR: -35.5%

38

Name: Emma Marcegaglia
Company: Marcegaglia
Sector: Industrial metals & mining
Location: Italy
3-year TSR: N/A

39

Name: Dorothy Thompson
Company: Drax
Sector: Electricity
Location: UK
3-year TSR: -44.6%

40

Name: Mary Sammons
Company: Rite Aid
Sector: Food & drug retailers
Location: US
3-year TSR: -64.4%

41

Name: Janet Robinson
Company: New York Times
Sector: Media
Location: US
3-yearTSR: -75%

42

Name: Anita Zucker
Company: InterTech Group
Sector: Chemicals
Location: US
3-year TSR: N/A

43

Name: Stephanie Burns
Company: Dow Corning
Sector: Chemicals
Location: US
3-year TSR: N/A

44

Name: Mindy Grossman
Company: HSN
Sector: General retailers
Location: US
TSR from August 2008 to August 2009: 10.4%

45

Name: Olivia Lum
Company: Hyflux
Sector: Gas, water and other utilities
Location: Singapore
3-year TSR: 4.1%

46

Name: Nita Ing
Company: Taiwan High Speed Rail
Sector: Travel & leisure
Location: Taiwan
3-year TSR: N/A

47

Name: Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Company: Biocon
Sector: Pharmaceuticals & biotechnology
Location: India
3-year TSR: 22.4%

48

Name: Shobhana Bhartia
Company: HT Media
Sector: Media
Location: India
3-year TSR: 8.2%

49

Name: Diana Bracco
Company: Bracco Group
Sector: Healthcare equipment & services
Location: Italy
3-year TSR: N/A

50

Name: Heather Reisman
Company: Indigo Books and Music
Sector: General retailers
Location: Canada
3-year TSR: -14.7%

...........................................

Women to watch

Industry and mining

Charlene Begley, GE Enterprise Solutions president and CEO
Since 2007, previously GE Plastics president and CEO

Lorraine Bolsinger, GE Aviation Systems president and CEO
Since 2008, previously GE ecoimagination vice-president

Christel Bories, Rio Tinto Alcan, Alcan Engineered Products, president and CEO
Since 2006, previously Alcan Packaging president and CEO

Carrie Cox, Schering-Plough Global Pharmaceuticals president and EVP

Deidre Connelly, GSK North American Pharmaceuticals president
Since February 2009, previously Eli Lilly US president

Jacynthe Côté, Rio Tinto Alcan CEO
Since 2009, previously Alcan Primary Metals from 2007

Colleen Goggins, Johnson & Johnson, Worldwide Consumer Group chairman
Since 2001, previously Consumer Products chairman

Brigitte Ederer, Siemens, Central and Eastern Europe CEO
Since 2008, previously Siemens Austria CEO

Melanie Healey, Proctor & Gamble, North America president
Since September 2009, previously P&G president Feminine and Healthcare

Deb Henretta, Proctor & Gamble Asia Group president
Since 2006, previously Asean, Australia and India president

Sheri McCoy, Johnson & Johnson, Worldwide Pharmaceuticals Group chairman
Since 2008, previously Surgical Care Group chairman

Margaret Øvrum, StatOilHydro, executive vice-president
Since 2007, previously StatOil executive vice-president from 2004

Dominique Reiniche, Coca-Cola, President Europe
Since 2005, previously Coca-Cola Enterprises Europe president

Daniela Riccardi, Proctor & Gamble, Greater China president
Since 2005, previously P&G Eastern Europe vice-president

Connie Tang, DHL Express, Hong Kong and Taiwan MD
Since January 2009, previously DHL Express Taiwan GM from 2005

Technology and media

Safra Catz, Oracle President
Since 2008, previously President and chief financial officer from 2005

Jennifer Li, Baidu.com chief financial officer
Since March 2008, previously GMAC North America controller of operations

Cathie Lesjak, Hewlett-Packard, CFO, executive vice-president
Since 2007, previously Treasurer and senior vice-president

Ann Livermore Hewlett-Packard, Technology Solutions Group, executive vice-president
Since 2004, previously software and services executive

Amanda J Mesler, Logica North America President and CEO
Since 2007, previously Sysco vice-president

Ann Moore, Time Inc chairman and CEO

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer
Since 2008, previously Google Global Online sales & operations vice-president

Nicole Seligman, Sony Corp, General Counsel and executive vice-president
Since 2005, previously Sony Corp America general counsel

Padmasree Warrior, Cisco chief technology officer
Since 2007, previously Motorola Labs

Neelam Dhawan, Hewlett-Packard India, managing director
Since 2008, previously Microsoft India managing director

Finance

Wei Christianson, Morgan Stanley China
Since 2006, rehired from Citigroup by Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack

Mignonne Cheng, BNP Paribas, North & East Asia head and HK CEO
Since 2004, previously BNP Paribas China deputy CEO from 2000

Betty Deng, Deutsche Bank China, chief country officer
Since 2007, hired from Citigroup

Barbara Desoer, Bank of America Home Loans and Insurance president
Since July 2008, previously BoA Global Technology and Operations executive

Manisha Griortra, UBS India chief executive
Since January 2009, previously UBS India investment banker after joining in 1996

Christine Ip - ANZ Bank, China CEO
Since January 2009, previously at Standard Chartered as China head of consumer banking

Sally Krawcheck, Bank of America, Global Wealth Management CEO
Since August 2009, previously Citigroup CFO until ousted

Naina Lal Kidwal, The HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, India group GM
Since 2005, previously HSBC India deputy CEO and head of investment banking

Heidi Miller, JP Morgan Chase, Treasury & Securities Services executive vice-president
Since 2004, previously Bank One Corporation CFO and EVP

Ruth Porat, Morgan Stanley, Financial Institutions Group head
Since 2006, previously Morgan Stanley telecoms and technology banker since 1987

Kate Richdale, Morgan Stanley, South East Asia CEO
Since Nov 2008, previously Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific General Industries Group head

Margaret Ren, BNP Paribas, Greater China chairman and CEO, corporate finance
Since Aug 2009, previously Merrill Lynch China Investment Banking chairwoman

Barbara Stymiest, Royal Bank of Canada, group head, treasury and corporate services
Since 2004, previously Toronto Stock Exchange group CEO. Also RIM board director

Katherine Tsang, Standard Chartered Bank China chairman
Since July 2009, previously SCB China CEO from 2005

Sue Wagner, BlackRock, COO