Who's up, down and off the Most Powerful Women list

• HP's Whitman sets the record for female Fortune 500 CEOs

  With Meg Whitman nabbing the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard--and the four women at the bottom of this list (below) new to the top job this year--America now has 15 female Fortune 500 CEOs.

  Not a number to be proud of, but hey, it's a record and it is progress nonetheless.

  Here are the women at the helm--including the rank of their companies on the Fortune 500:

  11  Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)

  39 Pat Woertz, MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Sep 23, 2011 2:00 PM ET
  Posted in: CEOs, Fortune 500, Fortune Most Powerful Women, Fortune Most Powerful Women list, FORTUNE MPWomen, Hewlett-Packard, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Meg Whitman, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Power Shift

• For Whitman, HP is the next best thing to running California

  Meg Whitman is the new CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Not interim chief. This is Whitman's for-real next big gig.

  And it is big indeed, given that the storied Silicon Valley company has lurched from chief to chief to chief ever since the board, in 1999, eased out Lew Platt and recruited Carly Fiorina from Lucent (ALU).

  Fiorina was the first No. 1 on the Fortune Most Powerful Women list, at the top MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Sep 22, 2011 5:05 PM ET
  Posted in: boards, Carly Fiorina, CEOs, eBay, FORTUNE MPWomen, Hewlett-Packard, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Mark Hurd, Meg Whitman, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, technology

• The women on Fortune's Executive Dream Team

  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
  Posted in: Anne Mulcahy, CEOs, consumer goods, Fortune Most Powerful Women list, FORTUNE MPWomen, Ginni Rometty, headhunters, Irene Rosenfeld, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Power Shift, Sheryl Sandberg

• Ex-Google exec Singh Cassidy on Joyus and facing her "inner entrepreneur"

  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
  Posted in: Accel, consumer goods, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, fashion, Google, Guest Post, Joyus, media, MPWomen Entrepreneurs, Postcards, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, technology

• The queens of media are falling fast

  I was on stage with Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the producer and director of Miss Representation, on Friday just after the news broke that Christina Norman was out as CEO of Oprah Winfrey's new TV network, OWN.

  What an odd coincidence, since Newsom's documentary explores the dearth of women in "clout positions" in the mainstream media. Newsom says that this number is 3%.

  Clearly, it is getting worse.

  The day before Norman, a former president MORE

  Patricia Sellers - May 9, 2011 2:54 PM ET
  Posted in: Ann Moore, Anne Sweeney, Carol Bartz, Cathie Black, CEOs, David Zaslav, entertainment, FORTUNE MPWomen, Judy McGrath, media, Most Powerful Women, Oprah, OPrah Winfrey, OWN, Postcards, Power Shift, publishing, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, succession, Susan Lyne, Viacom

• Cathie Black vows to come back: "I'm a warrior"

  by Patricia Sellers

  Few career falls are as swift and spectacular as Cathie Black's.

  It took just 95 days for the former boss of Hearst Magazines -- and alum of the Fortune Most Powerful Women list  -- to get ousted as chancellor of New York City public schools.

  Since her exit yesterday, Black had not talked to the press, except for "60 seconds in front of my apartment building last night," she said when she MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Apr 8, 2011 1:18 PM ET
  Posted in: Cathie Black, CEOs, education, FORTUNE MPWomen, Hearst, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, media, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Power Shift

• Meg Whitman to join Kleiner Perkins

  Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who got trounced in the race for California governor last November, has a new career plan: Venture capital with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

  By Patricia Sellers

  Meg Whitman, who is in Hawaii until Wednesday with her neurosurgeon husband Griff Harsh, declined to comment, but sources close to her and to the venerable Silicon Valley venture capital firm say that Kleiner will bring Whitman in as a MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 29, 2011 2:54 PM ET
  Posted in: boards, FORTUNE MPWomen, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mary Meeker, Meg Whitman, Most Powerful Women, politics, Postcards, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, technology, venture capital

• Beyond AOL: Does Arianna Huffington want to be Oprah?

  by Patricia Sellers

  The most head-spinning thing about Arianna Huffington's deal to sell the Huffington Post to AOL (AOL)--besides the sweet $315 million price, which is 10 times HuffPo's 2010 revenues and almost all in cash--is her expanded job description.

  Once the acquisition closes, Huffington will oversee all of AOL's media content including the recently purchased TechCrunch, Engadget, AOL Daily Finance, and MapQuest and Moviefone as well.

  Her new purview--overseeing platforms that reached MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Feb 8, 2011 2:58 PM ET
  Posted in: AOL, Arianna Huffington, blogging, Huffington Post, media, politics, Postcards, Power Shift, technology, Tim Armstrong

• Apple stock at $300: Watch out, Exxon Mobil

  by Patricia Sellers

  This morning, as Apple (AAPL) shares neared $300, a Postcards reader, gslusher, weighed in on a post that Jessica Shambora, my Fortune colleague, wrote in October 2009 about the world's largest stock-market capitalizations. Amazing to see how Apple, in less than a year, has vaulted just behind Exxon Mobil (XOM)...on its way to be THE most valuable company?

  1. Exxon Mobil $329.44 billion

  2. Apple $272.73 billion

  3. Microsoft (MSFT) $214.87 MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Oct 13, 2010 9:09 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Exxon Mobil, Postcards, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, technology, Wall Street