Postcards

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

Most Powerful Women: Which companies dominate?

September 10, 2009: 2:50 PM ET

PepsiCo (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi, No. 1 on the just-released Fortune Most Powerful Women list, is that company's only exec who made the cut this year. But five other big companies have two women who are high-powered enough for Fortune's rankings. They are: Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Avon (AVP), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Bank of America (BAC), and Fidelity Investments.

And what is the only company that has three executives on Fortune's 2009 MPWomen list? General Electric (GE), whose honorees include NBC Universal's Bonnie Hammer (No. 47) and Lauren Zalaznick (No. 48)--both new to our rankings--and Charlene Begley. A MPWomen list veteran, Begley is CEO of GE Enterprise Solutions and No. 27 in this year's rankings. -- 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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MPWomen go Global

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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