Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been named by Forbes as the 48th Most Powerful woman in the world. She is among the world’s 100 most powerful women, according to the Forbes’ annual list which is topped by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Another Nigerian, Folorunso Alakija was named the 87th Most Powerful Woman.
Forbes’s 12th annual list of the 100 most influential women feature extraordinary entrepreneurs, visionary CEOs, politicians, celebrity role models, billionaire activists and pioneer philanthropists who are “transforming the world” and and have been “ranked by dollars, media presence and impact”.
The top 10 include US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton (2), philanthriopist Melinda Gates (3), Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen (3), GM CEO Mary Barra (5), IMF Chief Christine Lagarde (6), Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (7), Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (8), YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki (9) and US First Lady Michelle Obama (10).
On a Okonjo- Iweala, Forbes said she “has helped the country’s economy, the largest in Africa, grow an average of 6% (per annum) over three years. She is credited with developing reform programs that helped improve governmental transparency and stabilizing the economy. Okonjo-Iweala is the first woman to be the finance minister and the foreign minister of the West African country with a GDP of $502 billion.” See full list below.
#1. Angela Merkel 60
#2 Hillary Clinton
#3 Melinda Gates
#4 Janet Yellen
#5 Mary Barra
#6 Christine Lagarde
#7 Dilma Rousseff
#8 Sheryl Sandberg
#9 Susan Wojcicki
#10 Michelle Obama
#11 Park Geun-hye
#12 Oprah Winfrey
#13 Ginni Rometty
#14 Meg Whitman
#15 Indra Nooyi
#16 Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
#17 Irene Rosenfeld
#18 Ana Patricia Botín
#19 Abigail Johnson
#20 Marillyn Hewson
#21 Beyoncé Knowles
#22 Marissa Mayer
#23 Helen Clark
#24 Safra Catz
#25 Angela Ahrendts
#26 Ellen Kullman
#27 Michelle Bachelet
#28 Anna Wintour
#29 Ursula Burns
#30 Arundhati Bhattacharya
#31 Sri Mulyani Indrawati
#32 Ruth Porat
#33 Lucy Peng
#34 Loretta Lynch
#35 Chanda Kochhar
#36 Federica Mogherini
#37 Gina Rinehart
#38 Nancy Pelosi
#39 Adena Friedman
#40 Ewa Kopacz
#41 Queen Elizabeth II
#42 Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi
#43 Ho Ching
#44 Laurene Powell Jobs
#45 Renée James
#46 Drew Gilpin Faust
#47 Ertharin Cousin
#48 Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
#49 Samantha Power
#50 Ellen DeGeneres
#51 Amy Hood
#52 Bonnie Hammer
#53 Mary Callahan Erdoes
#54 Angelina Jolie
#55 Beth Comstock
#56 Phebe Novakovic
#57 Sofía Vergara
#58 Donna Langley
#59 Sheikh Hasina Wajed
#60 Katie Jacobs Stanton
#61 Arianna Huffington
#62 Margaret Chan
#63 Mary Jo White
#64 Taylor Swift
#65 Rosalind Brewer
#66 Nemat (Minouche)
#67 Lubna S. Olayan
#68 Peng Liyuan
#69 Zhang Xin
#70 Güler Sabanci
#71 Elvira Nabiullina
#72 Elizabeth Holmes
#73 Tory Burch
#74 Dana Walden
#75 Diane von Furstenberg
#76 Carol Meyrowitz
#77 Mary Meeker
#78 Solina Chau
#79 Miuccia Prada
#80 Katharine Viner
#81 Shakira Mebarak
#82 Yao Chen
#83 Fabiola Gianotti
#84 Padmasree Warrior
#85 Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
#86 Kaci Kullmann Five
#87. Folorunsho Alakija
#88 Judy Faulkner 71
#89 Patricia Harris 58
#90 Gwynne Shotwell
#91 Sara Blakely
#92 Risa Lavizzo-Mourey
#93 Shobhana Bhartia
#94 Beth Brooke-Marciniak
#95 Weili Dai
#96 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
#97 Raja Easa Al Gurg
#98 Jenny Lee
#99 Greta Van Susteren
#100 Lee Boo-Jin