Condoleezza Rice is nr 1
2005-07-29 08:02
New York - United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is the world's most powerful woman, beating out a host of presidents, celebrities and chief executives to top Forbes magazine's global ranking of feminine clout.
The annual list, unveiled on Thursday, was Forbes' second ranking of the world's 100 most powerful women and left Rice two-for-two, having topped the 2004 version as US National Security Adviser.
Chinese vice-premier Wu Yi was runner-up for the second year in a row, but other prominent Asian women fared less well.
Former Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, number eight on the list last year, not only lost her top 10 position but fell out of the rankings altogether following her failed re-election bid.
A similar fate befell India's ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, who was deemed the third most powerful woman in 2004 but could not make the top 100 a year later.
There was better news, for now at least, for Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, who jumped five places to take the number four ranking this year, behind newcomer Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukranian prime minister who debuted at number three.
The highest ranking businesswoman on the list was Margaret Whitman, the chief executive of the wildly successful internet auction site eBay, who was in fifth position ahead of Xerox chief executive Anne Mulcahy.
US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, who last month topped the Forbes list of most powerful celebrities, broke into the all-women top 10 at number nine - a huge leap from her 62nd ranking in 2004.
Rounding out the top 10 was Melinda Gates, wife of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Other well-known names on the list included US Senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton (26), recently retired US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor (36), Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (40), US First Lady Laura Bush (46) and CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour (72).
The Forbes rankings are based on a composite of visibility - measured by press citations - and economic impact.
The latter reflects three things: status (a prime minister is more powerful than a senator), the size of the economic sphere over which the person holds sway and a multiplier that aims to make different economic yardsticks comparable.
A politician, for example, is assigned a gross national product number but a low multiplier, while an executive is assigned a company's assets but gets a high multiplier.