The latest list from
Forbes of the
100 most powerful women on the planet suggests that the technology industry is leading the way in promoting sexual equality, contributing 15 per cent of the spots overall and a quarter of the top 20 positions.
The technology industry contributed more names to the list (see below) than any other business sector, and includes the heads of some of the biggest firms in the hardware, software, and services sectors. Google was the only company to have two women on the list
The top tech position at number four goes to
Melinda Gates, Co-chair of the charitable foundation that bears her and Bill's name.
The corporate world is well represented overall, with Facebook's COO
Sheryl Sandberg (10), Virginia Rometty, CEO of
IBM (15), Xerox's boss
Ursula Burns (17), and
Meg Whitman, failed political candidate and
HP's latest CEO (18). Yahoo's new leader Marissa Meyer (21) just missed the top 20, while Oracle co-president
Safra Catz got a very poor position (48), possibly reflecting Larry's tight grip on his outfit
"The 100 Women Who Run The World" include, in Forbes's view:
10 Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook
15 Virginia Rometty, IBM President and CEO
17 Ursula Burns, Xerox Chair and CEO
18 Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO
21 Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO
48 Safra Catz, Oracle chief financial officer
56
Cher Wang, Co-founder and chairwoman of HTC
58 Padmasree Warrior, Cisco chief technology officer
70 Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation