Postcards

How the power players do it - by Fortune senior editor at large Patricia Sellers

Most Powerful Women: The list about the list!

September 30, 2008: 12:11 PM ET

We've spent the last three months slicing and dicing the accomplishments and career histories of the most powerful women in business -- far too many facts and figures to fit into our Most Powerful Women package in the magazine. Here are 10 intriguing facts that we couldn't find space for in print:

Youngest woman to ever appear on the list: Marissa Mayer, VP of Search and User Experience at Google (GOOG). At 33 years old, she lands in the No. 50 spot. Before Mayer, the youngest MPWoman ever was Sallie Krawcheck, age 37 in 2002 when she was CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein and debuted at No. 42.

Highest-profile dropoff: Krawcheck, who last week quit her CEO post at Citigroup (C), where she was chairman and CEO of Global Wealth Management.

Highest-ranking returnee: Safra Catz, co-president of Oracle (ORCL) at No. 16. Catz last appeared in 2005, at No. 49. She has impressively overseen 40-plus acquisitions and earned her way back to a top spot.

Highest-ranking newcomer: Susan Chambers, EVP of the Global People Division at Wal-Mart (WMT). Wal-Mart is not only the largest company in the world, it also employs the largest private workforce (over two million!), earning Chambers her spot at No. 25.

Non-CEOs in the top 10: Susan Arnold, No. 7, president of global business units at Procter & Gamble (PG); Oprah Winfrey, No. 8, chairman of her Harpo Inc. multimedia empire; and Ursula Burns, No. 10, president of Xerox (XRX). Burns will likely become CEO of Xerox next year, with Anne Mulcahy staying on as chairman.

Biggest leap at the top: Ellen Kullman, up from No. 25 to No. 15. Last week, she was named president and CEO designate at DuPont (DD). Other major jumps: Heidi Miller, who heads J.P. Morgan Chase's (JPM) treasury and securities services unit, from No. 27 to 17, and TJX (TJX) CEO Carol Meyrowitz, from No. 31 to 19. Her low-price retail chains are winning over shoppers in this sagging economy.

Consumer-goods bosses in the top 10: PepsiCo. (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi (No. 1), Kraft (KFT) CEO Irene Rosenfeld (No. 2), Avon (AVP) CEO Andrea Jung (No. 6), P&G's Arnold (No. 7), and Sara Lee (SLE) CEO Brenda Barnes (No. 9).

Only MPWoman who doesn't run a major business or direct the strategy of a corporation: securities analyst Meredith Whitney (No. 35). Oppenheimer & Co.'s hugely influential market mover made the August 18 cover of Fortune for her prescient predictions of plummeting bank stocks.

Blasted off the list: Morgan Stanley (MS) co-president Zoe Cruz (No. 16 last year) and VMware (VMW) CEO Diane Greene (No. 22 last year) were fired.

One woman worth watching, still: Erin Callan, whom we identified as a 2007 "woman to watch," lost the CFO job at Lehman Brothers (LEH) in June and found refuge at Credit Suisse (CS), where she now heads the firm's global hedge fund business. Callan didn't make our list this year, but she certainly knows power, as she demonstrates in her first interview since leaving Lehman. Read Katie Benner's exclusive Q&A. - Jessica Shambora

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About This Author
Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.

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