Rosenfeld tops Fortune`s most powerful women list
Baku, September 30 (AZERTAC). Kraft Foods boss Irene Rosenfeld is the most powerful woman in U.S. business, Fortune magazine said Thursday, bumping PepsiCo Inc. chief Indra Nooyi into second spot after five years on top.
The 14th annual ranking was determined by 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 her social and cultural relevance.
Nooyi was the only woman in the 10 most powerful to be among the 10 highest paid, coming in at No. 9 after earning $14 million last year. The highest paid woman was Oracle President Safra Catz with $42 million.
Just a week after being appointed chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., Meg Whitman -- who was chief executive of eBay Inc. until 2008 and last year ran a failed bid to become governor of California -- returned to the ranking of the top 50 most powerful business women at No. 9.
Whitman filled a Top 10 vacancy left by the firing over the phone last month of Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Carol Bartz.
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey fell 10 spots to No. 16 with Fortune saying her influence had waned after hosting the final season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in May. Johnson & Johnson Vice Chairman, Executive Committee, Sherilyn McCoy, filled the final Top 10 opening
Archer Daniels Midland Chief Executive Patricia Woertz came in at No. 3, followed by DuPont Chief Executive Ellen Kullman, Wellpoint Chief Executive Angela Braly and Avon Products Chief Executive Andrea Jung.
Rounding out the Top 10 was IBM Senior Vice President Ginni Rometty at No. 7, followed by Xerox Chief Executive Ursula Burns.
While women represent about half of the United States` white-collar workers, they are a rarity in the upper echelons of business, with female chief executives running just 3 percent of companies in the Standard & Poor`s 500.
More companies have been focusing recently on increasing their female board representation as more and more research has shown that companies with women directors or even just more diverse boards tend to do better than those with executive teams made up entirely of men.
Some countries such as Norway and Spain require a minimum level of female board representation.
A former British trade minister wants FTSE 100 companies to have 25 percent women on boards by 2015 and EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier has put gender diversity for bank boards on his radar in the wake of the financial crisis.
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