FT Adds Its Own Very International List of Top Businesswomen

The Financial Times joins the list of business publications with a list of leading women around the world. Its Fall 2009 collection includes not just the 50 most powerful women in business but also lists of top lieutenants (women who run divisions of note but not fully free-standing companies) and women to watch.

The list, the FT’s first, follows similar but very different lists from Forbes and Fortune.

Among business women (and for comparative purposes, we are leaving out women listed for politics or government), all three lists give top billing to Indra Nooyi, the PepsiCo CEO and chairwoman. And all three include such stalwarts of the Fortune 100 as Andrea Jung of Avon and Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft high up their lists. But after that, the ranking diverge widely.

The FT ranking took into consideration not just the women’s prominence or influence, but also their company’s scope and complexity, the women’s durability and the competitive landscape. Shareholder return, where applicable, figured in, and only women who had been in their current post at least a year were judged. Truly multinational companies added more to a woman’s ranking than companies with more narrow geographic focuses. Women who did not run the controlling company in a group were excluded, even though “these women – and others like them – oversee units that are sometimes larger and more complex than many individual companies.”

In the interest of full disclosure, this site must note that the author of the introduction for the FT list, Alison Maitland, co-wrote “Why Women Mean Business” with the publisher of this site and chief of 20-first, Avivah Wittenburg-Cox.

Rank	Name	Main Title	Company	Nationality
1	Indra Nooyi	CEO	PepsiCo	Indian
2	Andrea Jung	CEO	Avon	Canadian
3	Anne Lauvergeon	CEO	Areva	French
4	Irene Rosenfeld	CEO	Kraft	US
5	Güler Sabanci	CEO	Sabanci Group	Turkish
6	Gail Kelly	CEO	Westpac	South African
7	Annika Falkengren	CEO	SEB	Swedish
8	Yoshiko Shinohara	President	Temp Holdings	Japanese
9	Dong Mingzhu	General Manager	Gree Electric Appliances	Chinese
10	Ho Ching	CEO	Temasek Holdings	Singaporean

The FT spread its top 10 around much of the world, though some might take issue with its nationality of Nooyi.

The newspaper’s profiles of several of the women note how their rise to corporate power may have been influenced by family, but notes in each such case that the results or power of the woman in question vouch for her inclusion in the list.

Rank	Name	Main Title	Company	Nationality
11	Patricia Ann Woertz	CEO	Archer Daniels Midland	US
12	Ofra Strauss	Chair	Strauss Group	Israeli
13	Antonia Ax:son Johnson	Axel Jo	Axel Johnson	Swedish
14	Brenda Barnes	CEO	Sara Lee	US
15	Angela Ahrendts	CEO	Burberry	US
16	Nancy McKinstry	CEO	Wolters Kluwer	US
17	Cynthia Carroll	CEO	Anglo American	US
18	Christina Gold	CEO	Western Union	US
19	Cheung Yan	Chair	Nine Dragons Paper	Chinese
20	Carol Meyrowitz	CEO	TJX	US

In the second ten rankings, however, Americans make up 7 of the 10 spots, including three who run companies that are not based in the US.

Rank	Name	Main Title	Company	Nationality
21	Stine Bosse	CEO	TrygVesta	Danish
22	Vinita Bali	Managing Director	Britannia Industries	Indian
23	Zhang Xin	CEO	SOHO China	Chinese
24	Monika Ribar	CEO	Panalpina	Swiss
25	Nahed Taher	CEO	Gulf One Investment Bank	Saudi
26	Kate Swann	CEO	WH Smith	UK
27	Li Xiaolin	CEO	China Power International Development	Chinese
28	Chu Lam Yiu	Chair	Huabao International Holdings	Chinese
29	Chua Sock Koong	CEO	Singapore Telecommunications	Singaporean
30	Angela Fick Braly	CEO	WellPoint	US
31	Lisa Jayne Morgan	CEO	Game Group	UK
32	Ruby McGregor-Smith	CEO	Mitie Group	UK
33	Susan Ivey	CEO	Reynolds American	US
34	Cristina Stenbeck	Chair	Investment AB Kinnevik	Swedish
35	Lynn Laverty Elsenhans	CEO	Sunoco	US

Rank	Name	Main Title	Company	Nationality
36	Harriet Green	CEO	Premier Farnell	UK
37	Ines Kolmsee	CEO	SKW	German
38	Emma Marcegaglia	CEO	Marcegaglia	Italian
39	Dorothy Thompson	CEO	Drax	UK
40	Mary Sammons	CEO	Rite Aid	US
41	Janet Robinson	CEO	New York Times Co.	US
42	Anita Zucker	CEO	InterTech Group	US
43	Stephanie Burns	CEO	Dow Corning	US
44	Mindy Grossman	CEO	HSN	US
45	Olivia Lum	CEO	Hyflux	Singaporean
46	Nita Ing	Former Chair (resigned Sept 22, 2009)	Taiwan High Speed Rail	Taiwanese
47	Kiran Mazumdar Shaw	Chair	Biocon	Indian
48	Shobhana Bhartia	Chair	HT Media	Indian
49	Diana Bracco	CEO	Bracco Group	Italian
50	Heather Reisman	CEO	Indigo Books & Music	Canadian

Some of these women the newspaper calls “The Lieutenants” are at least as powerful as some of the women below the first tier of the main list, but the FT made no effort to rank them in terms of the main listing.

Name	Main Title	Company	Nationality
Dawn Airey	CEO	Five TV	UK
Ana Patricia Botín	President	Banesto	Spain
Patrizia Grieco	CEO	Olivetti	Italian
Lubna Olayan	CEO	Olayan Financing	Saudi
Preetha Reddy	Managing Director	Apollo Hospitals	Indian
Amina Rustamani	CEO	Tecom Business Parks	UAE
Dominique Senequier	President	Axa Private Equity	French
Mian Mian Yang	President	Haier Group	Chinese