Time Inc.’s Fortune Reveals Annual List of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business

NEW YORK

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

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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.’”
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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.”

Sheryl Sandberg, who left Google to become COO of Facebook, talks to Fortune about her rules for scaling an organization: “Think big. Hire big. Plan big…. Fast growth means you are always behind…. I always tried to help teams see what they would need before they needed it.”

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, tells Fortune of Yahoo’s CEO: “If Marissa [Mayer] were at Google today, she would likely be in charge of one of the Alphabet companies,” … but he acknowledges that someone as ambitious as Mayer would want a bigger role.

Jess Lee, 32, who left Google in 2008 to join Polyvore and four years later ascended to CEO, tells Fortune: “Google is a great training ground for how to build an amazing culture and an amazing product. But Google is not that good at teaching you how to build a business.”

Francoise Casals Brougher, who left her vice president job at Google two years ago to help Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey build Square: “Google has always wanted to have a major impact on the world. Having us go to other companies is an extension of that.”
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Fortune Exclusive: An In-Depth Interview with Apple’s SVP of Retail and Online Stores, Angela Ahrendts

On a visit to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, Fortune spoke with Angela Ahrendts, the former CEO of Burberry, and her boss, CEO Tim Cook, about her role as senior vice president, retail and online stores, and their longer-term plans. Ahrendts reveals a lot about the company’s evolving philosophy in her first in-depth interview at Apple.

Ahrendts tells Fortune that she believes the key to the company’s future is not just marvelous products, but also engaging and energizing its nearly 100,000 employees, 60% of whom now work in the $21.5 billion retail division, saying: “If you’re going to employ people anyway… why not make them the differentiator? They’re not a commodity…. Burberry was about building a relationship…. But it was always about selling an amazing product that you would have forever. Apple is just a deeper relationship with a much broader constituency. Because it’s everybody.”

Ahrendts’ initial strategy for fitting in at Apple was to stay under the radar: “I didn’t dare say anything prior to six months…. My dad used to tell me, growing up [citing Abraham Lincoln], ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and relieve them of all doubt.’ So I kept remembering that and chose not to over communicate.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook tells Fortune: “It felt like she’d been here a decade her first day…. I knew she was going to be off the charts, but she’s even more off the charts than I thought. She came in so fast, there was no [learning] curve. I’ve never met a single individual like that before.”
http://for.tn/1JWm8lt

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FORTUNE and Food & Wine Present the Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink 2015

Teaming up for the second year, Fortune and Food & Wine editors selected the 2015 winners, spotlighting the top entrepreneurs and idealists who are changing the world though meaningful work that touches the culinary field. The second annual list includes Lauren Bush Lauren, Carla Hall, WaterAid’s Sarina Prabashi, Jessica Alba and Barbara Frost and Jessamyn Rodriguez of Hot Bread Kitchen.

See the list here: http://for.tn/1JTmhUs

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For more Fortune MPW news, watch live interviews with Beth Comstock, Cathy Englebert and Diane Von Furstenberg this Friday, Sept. 11, on Fortune Live!, hosted by Leigh Gallagher. And subscribe to The Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter: http://bit.ly/VVqrcH

The new issue of Fortune hits newsstands on Monday, September 14, 2015.

About Time Inc.

Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) is one of the world’s leading media companies, with a monthly global print audience of over 120 million and worldwide digital properties that attract more than 140 million visitors each month, including over 60 websites. Our influential brands include People, Sports Illustrated, InStyle, Time, Real Simple, Southern Living, Entertainment Weekly, Travel + Leisure, Cooking Light, Fortune and Food & Wine, as well as more than 50 diverse titles in the United Kingdom such as Decanter, Horse & Hound and Wallpaper*. Time Inc. is home to celebrated franchises and events including the Fortune 500, Time 100, People’s Sexiest Man Alive, Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year, the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, the Essence Festival and the biennial Fortune Global Forum. Hundreds of thousands of people attend our live media events every year. We also provide content marketing, targeted local print and digital advertising programs, branded book publishing and marketing and support services, including subscription sales services for magazines and other products, retail distribution and marketing services and customer service and fulfillment services, for ourselves and third-party clients, including other magazine publishers.

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