Ever since Fortune, in 1998, started ranking the top women in business (yes, we were first), I've been asking the stars of the Most Powerful Women list how they reached the top and how they stay there. One month away from revealing our 2011 MPW rankings, now seems a good time to share some of their best career tips. Here is my Top 10:
1. Don't plan your career. Most of MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 30, 2011 10:48 AM ET
Mayer, in red, with Chef Gary Danko (middle), and 100 Mile Month champs Photo by Googler Wesley Chan
Last Monday evening, in the backyard of her Silicon Valley home, Marissa Mayer stood before a crowd of 200 fellow Googlers and their significant others, fed them roast quail and herb-crusted roast bison loin, and feted them for going mobile.
"We walked more than once around the earth at the equator—or MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 29, 2011 1:06 PM ET
Summitt, calling the shots
Besides her 1,071 wins, 18 Final Fours, and eight national championships--the stuff that makes Pat Summitt the winningest coach, male or female, in NCAA basketball history--there is the stuff of her leadership. Measured against anyone else in sports or anywhere, Summitt stands as one of the most formidable and focused leaders you will ever meet.
Last night, after the University of Tennessee Lady Vols coach made the MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 24, 2011 3:03 PM ET
A look back at the way the restaurant chain handled the deaths of two CEOs and found the right man for the job.
McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner, photographed in 2011, is a product of the company's strong culture of promoting from within.
I wrote this article in 2005, a few months after Jim Skinner became CEO of McDonald's (MCD). The piece didn't run in the magazine because of space constraints, but MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 23, 2011 5:00 AM ET
The 2011 Fortune Most Powerful Women list will be announced on September 29. Meantime, a few stars on the 2010 MPW list are on Fortune's Executive Dream Team--a fantasy all-star lineup of managers, selected by Fortune editors with assists from recruiters and other business know-it-alls.
I use the term know-it-all with endearment because the selections, revealed today, are good. The non-executive chair of choice: Anne Mulcahy, the former CEO of Xerox MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 22, 2011 3:55 PM ET
Ursula Burns
When Ursula Burns went to Washington and met with President Obama last Friday, at least two people in the room personified her notion of what leads to great success: "The biggest differentiator is not how you are born," says the Chairman and CEO of Xerox (XRX). "It's how you're influenced throughout your life."
Barack Obama had a remarkable single mother to influence him. As did Burns, who grew up MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 16, 2011 10:55 AM ET
Lt. Colonel Gary Brickner
Postcards is about people in transition and folks who do things beyond their job description. Gary Brickner is one of those. In this Guest Post, the third in a series about executives and professionals who serve in the war, Brickner, a New Jersey surgeon and Lt. Colonel in the National Guard, shares his boots-on-the-ground experience treating Taliban detainees in Afghanistan. Brickner didn't have to do MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 11, 2011 10:49 AM ET
China's Yang Lan and Avon CEO Andrea Jung
In every successful career there is a moment: You could quit. But you resist, wisely.
For Andrea Jung, the chairman and CEO of Avon Products (AVP), this moment happened right after college, when she was in the management training program at Bloomingdale's. All day everyday, there she was in the stockroom, switching vendor hangers for store hangers on thousands of pieces of clothes. MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 9, 2011 2:20 PM ET
The McDonald's (MCD) boss behind the healthy upgrade to its U.S. menu is practicing what she preaches: She recently lost 90 pounds.
Jan Fields, who started at McDonald's 33 years ago cooking fries and is now the fast food chain's U.S. president, was soon to turn 55 when, she says, "I woke up one day and said, "Oh my God, how did I gain this much weight?"
Like millions of her customers MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 2, 2011 3:38 PM ET
Most women don't go for it, career-wise, like the guys do. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy breaks that mold. A onetime star at Google (GOOG), where was president of Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations, she has restlessly rotated through the startup world--from Amazon.com (AMZN) to OpenTV to News Corp.'s (NWS) BSkyB to Yodlee, a financial-services company that she co-founded, to Polyvore, a fashion site where she was CEO last year until quitting MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 1, 2011 1:17 PM ET
For the latest on the most influential women in business, philanthropy, government, and the arts, like us on Facebook. 
In a funny and candid interview, Google VP Marissa Mayer explains how she got to the top. Watch
Xerox CEO Ursula Burns shares how she once accepted a job with Dell but ended up staying with Xerox. Watch
Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
.
Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
