The trailblazers on the first-ever 50 Over 50 Global list work across 32 countries and territories and are shaping everything from cybersecurity to science and even traffic safety. In building behemoth shipping companies, innovative biotech businesses and venture capital firms, these women are building wealth, creating jobs, and proving that age is not an impediment to making a lasting impact on the world.
View the list: A-C
64 | Cofounder and Associate Scientific Director, CAPRISA | South Africa
Quarraisha Abdool Karim
An infectious diseases epidemiologist, Quarraisha Abdool Karim is one of the world’s leading HIV/AIDs researchers. Since 1998, Abdool Karim has led Columbia University’s Southern African Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Programme that’s helped train over 600 scientists. She’s currently the cofounder and associate director of the Center for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). In 2010, after 18 years of “being an expert at failure” (as she puts it), Abdool Karim published research showing that tenofovir gel can help prevent HIV in girls, a major breakthrough in HIV/AIDS prevention.
79 | Co-owner, MSC | Switzerland
Rafaela Aponte-Diamant
Rafaela Aponte-Diamant is the co-owner of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest shipping line. She and her husband, Gianluigi, each own a 50% stake in the company; giving her a net worth of $31.3 billion. The journey to billionairedom began in 1970, when the couple bought a ship with a $200,000 loan. They launched MSC that same year, buying up secondhand ships and targeting less trafficked routes. The duo’s biggest deal in decades came in 2022, when they bought Bolloré Africa Logistics, the transport and logistics arm of the Bolloré Group, for $6 billion. Aponte-Diamant’s wealth places her among the top 50 richest individuals globally.
80 | Founder, Gujju Ben Na Nasta | India
Urmila Asher
By her mid-70s, Urmila Asher had already achieved what most people would define as success: She’d raised a loving family. But at 75, she had a new vision and started Gujju Ben na Nasta, a retail food store and cloud kitchen, amid the Covid-19 pandemic and an accident that had left her grandson disfigured and depressed. Asher, commonly called “Gujju Ben,”started with a Gujarati-style pickle business, but began expanding her sales to other Gujarati delicacies and selling across Mumbai, all while documenting her progress and sharing recipes on social media. Her fame peaked in 2023 when she appeared on MasterChef India, and though she was eliminated early in the season, she gained nearly 700,000 social followers.
85 | Author | Canada
Margaret Atwood
Prolific author and poet Margaret Atwood has penned more than 50 books and published in more than 45 countries in the 64 years since her first piece of poetry was published by a small press. In that time, Atwood has collected a litany of literary awards—including two Booker Prizes, the Franz Kafka Prize, and lifetime achievement awards from both the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA—but in a post-Roe America, her highest-profile dystopian novels have proven especially relevant. “The Handmaid’s Tale,” was adapted for television and debuted on Hulu in 2017. At 85, Atwood is still surprising readers and released “Paper Boat,” a collection of poems written throughout her six-decade career, in October.
52 | Founder, MiDesk Global | South Africa
Farana Boodhram
“Practical solutions” might best describe Farana Boodhram’s innovations, among which are overalls designed specifically for female miners—they can unzip into a two-piece, making it easier to use the bathroom. Then there’s MiDesk, a wheelie school bag that can launch into a desk equipped with a chair and solar light. The latest version of the MiDesk with extendable legs and storage room allows for a child to use one unit for their entire 12-year academic career. The invention has won the African Impact Challenge and other business awards from South African organizations. Boodram has nearly two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, and last fall, at age 51, completed her PhD with a thesis titled “Gender Equity and Business Leadership in South Africa’s Mining Industry.”
52 | CEO, Veolia | France
Estelle Brachlianoff
In 2022, Estelle Brachlianoff became CEO of Veolia, a 170-year-old French company that works in water, waste management and other environmental services. She came into her role just as the company concluded a $28 billion acquisition of Suez, a utility company that employs more than 40,000 (bringing Veolia’s total employee count to more than 200,000). Under Brachlianoff’s leadership, Veolia recorded $50 billion in 2023 revenue with $1.5 billion in net profits. The trained engineer first joined the company in 2005 as a special advisor to the CEO of Veolia Environmental Services.
52 | CEO, Sigma Lithium | Brazil
Ana Cabral
Brazil-based Ana Cabral runs one of the world’s largest lithium mining companies, Sigma Lithium. She was appointed to her role in 2016, four years after the company went public in Brazil. Under her leadership, the company has advanced its ability to produce lithium without hazardous chemicals; she also guided its listing on the Nasdaq in 2021. Cabral is also the cofounder and managing partner of A10 Investimentos, the private equity firm that holds the controlling shares (roughly 44%) of Sigma. Earlier in her career, Cabral worked at Goldman Sachs overseeing the equity capital markets in Latin America.
56 | President, European Investment Bank | Luxembourg
Nadia Calviño
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the lending arm of the European Union and counts roughly $260 billion in total subscribed capital, making it one of the world’s largest multilateral financial institutions. Sitting at the helm—with purview over both the purse strings and policy—is Nadia Calviño. The Spanish economist and lawyer stepped into the role in January 2024, becoming the first woman and Spaniard to lead the EIB since it was established by the Treaty of Rome in 1958. Previously, she served as First Vice-President of Spain and Minister of Economy, Trade and Enterprise under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
65 | Founder and President, Etoile Group | United Arab Emirates
Ingie Chalhoub
More than four decades ago, Ingie Chalhoub launched Etoile Group with her mother to bring Chanel’s first Middle Eastern franchise to Kuwait. After Iraq invaded the country and forced the duo to pack up their operations, Chalhoub restarted the business with her husband in Dubai. Today, the Etoile Group has 80 boutiques across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon and more for brands including Chanel, Valentino and Ralph Lauren. The group also launched its own multi-brand store that holds items from up-and-coming luxury brands. It opened 11 new locations in the first half of 2024 alone.
55 | CEO, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing | Hong Kong
Bonnie Chan
In March 2024, Bonnie Chan became the first female CEO of Hong Kong’s stock exchange operator (HKEX) and has been focused on rejuvenating the market ever since. Hong Kong IPOs in last year’s first quarter raised $610 million, the lowest level since 2009. In the second quarter—Chan’s first as CEO—18 companies went public, up from 12 the prior quarter. By September, Chinese home appliance maker Midea raised $4 billion, the largest Hong Kong listing in almost four years. The Harvard Law School graduate and Morgan Stanley alum is also focused on abolishing all-male boards for companies on the exchange. “I don’t think we need to debate the benefit of having diversity in the boardroom,” Chan has said. “It is important because it will prevent groupthink.”
69 | Cofounder and Chair, Chenbro Micom | Taiwan
Maggi Chen
Maggi Chen cofounded Chenbro Micom, a Taiwan-listed company, in 1983 with her husband and younger brother. Over the following 30 years, she guided its core function from designing computer chassis—the housing for a computer’s main parts—to manufacturing them. Today, the business, which counts leading chipmaker Nvidia among its clients, is one of the world’s largest producers of chassis for servers. First-half revenue in 2024 jumped 53% to NT$6.4 billion ($198 million) year-on-year, while net profit surged 176% to NT$833 million. Chen, who came from a modest background in central Taiwan, opened the company’s new plant in Chiayi County, next to her native Yunlin County.
“Dreams are ageless,” Barajas says of her success after 50. “Maybe when you’re young you go a little crazy and take many risks, and with age you start thinking it through more. But that doesn’t limit you.”
Leyenda de Mexico
59 | Founder and Head Distiller, Leyenda de Mexico | Mexico
Melly Barajas
Melly Barajas was a student and aspiring fashion designer when her dad first planted the idea of owning a tequila brand. She started a journey to learn all she could about producing tequila, meeting with family businesses, factory owners and distillers, often as the only woman in the room. Today, the 60-year-old is the founder and head distiller of Leyenda de Mexico, one of the first female-owned tequila companies and one that runs an all-female operation. Produced in Los Altos de Jalisco, outside Guadalajara, Barajas’ plant produces 20,000 liters of tequila daily for six brands, four of which she owns. That’s all been done by simply updating equipment while maintaining the same level of 38 employees. Barajas has become known as the “queen of tequila” among the industry circles when she started hiring for her company’s launch in 2000 and only women showed up for the interviews. “That was my fuel to keep pushing when things got tough, that I trusted other women, and they trusted me,” she says.
56 | CEO, Pro Mujer | Uruguay
Carmen Correa
Pro Mujer is a leading women’s development organization in Latin America that has provided $4.4 billion in micro-loans and more than 10 million in health interventions over the past three decades. Carmen Correa has been with the nonprofit for eight years and has led as CEO for the past three. Under her leadership, Pro Mujer’s team has grown to 1,500 people, its geographic reach has expanded to Guatemala, Southeast Mexico and Latin migrant women living in the U.S and she secured a $1 million grant from the Visa Foundation.
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79 | Activist | Brazil
Maria da Penha
Maria da Penha has used a wheelchair since 1983 after a life-threatening domestic violence attack. This alone is not uncommon, but what happened next is a story of remarkable resilience: Her attacker—da Penha’s then-husband—was convicted twice in Brazil, yet legal appeals set him free. Then, in 2006, when she was 61, the “Law Maria da Penha,” or Federal Brazilian Law 11340, was enacted by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Her nearly 20-year fight for justice was the first to successfully help establish increased severity of punishment for domestic violence against women in Brazil.
62 | Founder and CEO, The Menopause Hub | Ireland
Loretta Dignam
Like many women who enter menopause and feel blindsided by some of its symptoms, Loretta Dignam also felt let down by the traditional healthcare system. And so she went about fixing her own problems, founding The Menopause Hub—Ireland’s first and only dedicated menopause clinic at the time–in December 2018, at the age of 56. With two locations in Dublin and one in Cork, The Menopause Hub offers patients dedicated access to OB-GYNs who can prescribe hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and non-hormonal treatment options. In her spare time, Dignam has also been campaigning for the Irish government to offer free HRT for people experiencing perimenopause and menopause.
62 | Deputy, Panama Canal | Panama
Ilya Espino de Marotta
When the 50-mile-long Panama Canal opened more than a century ago, the engineering feat was deemed the “eighth wonder of the world.” Today, it moves $270 billion in cargo annually, and Ilya Espino de Marotta has played a major role in making that possible. The year she turned 50, Marotta was made executive vice president for engineering and tasked with leading the $5.2 billion Panama Canal Expansion Project. The first woman in her role, she proudly showed up to work in a pink hard hat and vest until the canal’s biggest-ever upgrade wrapped in 2016. From there, she continued climbing the ranks of the canal’s governing organization, becoming the first female deputy administrator in 2020, and this year, adding on another title as the agency’s first chief sustainability officer.
61 | Director and Artistic Director, National Ballet of China | China
Feng Ying
Feng Ying has consistently promoted Chinese arts through Western classical ballet through her leadership roles at the National Ballet of China. Feng was a ballerina for two decades, holding principal roles in Swan Lake, Giselle and The Red Detachment of Women, among others. She retired to teach in 2000 and then assumed the helm of the National Ballet in 2009. Under her stewardship, the ballet started annual workshops to promote new and modern choreography and style, and she brought new works to the NBC stage, including Chinese New Year—an interpretation of The Nutcracker—and a show promoting the preservation of cranes called The Crane Calling.
51 | Founder and CEO, LYMA | United Kingdom
Lucy Goff
Lucy Goff founded LYMA, a beauty device company known for its handheld low-laser product, when she was 45. It was the year she turned 50, though, when both LYMA and Goff’s leadership skills kicked into high gear: Her husband, then the company’s CEO, left the business, and Goff began building the brand by herself. She’s captured a $180 million valuation and 40% year-over-year revenue growth. Today, it counts A-listers as brand loyalists and is sold through Harrods, Neiman Marcus, Goop and more. In 2023, Goff’s laser made Time magazine’s best inventions list, and last year, LYMA was named one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies by the Financial Times.
61 | President, Megaworld | Philippines
Lourdes Gutierrez-Alfonso
Lourdes Gutierrez-Alfonso became Megaworld’s president in June 2024, succeeding billionaire Andrew Tan, who founded the company in 1989 and built it into one of the Philippines’ biggest call center landlords and hotel operators. She is driving a major expansion—Megaworld plans to spend some $6.1 billion over five years to develop and expand its townships by 13% to 35% and beef up its hotel portfolio to 12,000 rooms across 27 properties (up from 8,000 rooms in 19 properties as of September 2024). Gutierrez-Alfonso’s new role will be a challenge: borrowing costs remain high while rivals are aggressively constructing hotels in anticipation of a tourism rally.
61 | Head Coach, Banyana Banyana | South Africa
Desiree Ellis
Desiree Ellis is the head coach of the women’s South African soccer team, Banyana Banyana (which translates to “Girls Girls” or “The Girls”). In 2022, Ellis led the team to their first-ever Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title, solidifying a spot for their second FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament. The following year brought another first: making it out of the group round and into the round of 16. Ellis received the Confederation of African Football Women’s Coach of the Year award every year between 2018 and 2023. Last year, Ellis was awarded the National Order of Ikhamanga by the South African Government for her service to the sport.
70 | Equestrian | Australia
Mary Hanna
More than 10,000 athletes from around the world descended on Paris for the 2024 Olympics last summer. Among those was Australian equestrian Mary Hanna, who, then 69, was the oldest competitor in the entire Games. Serving as Australia’s reserve rider in the dressage competition, Hanna ultimately left without a medal, but also without plans of retiring. The six-time Olympian has already set her sights on the 2028 L.A. Olympics and acquired two new horses for training. Hanna first got into the saddle at four years old on her parents’ farm.
73 | Vice President, Ghana | Ghana
Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang
Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang was sworn in as Ghana’s vice president in January 2025—becoming the first woman to hold the role. It’s not her only “first”: In 2008, Opoku-Agyemang became the first female vice-chancellor of a Ghanaian state university when she was inducted into the role at the University of Cape Coast. She served as Ghana’s Minister for Education from 2013 to 2017, and during this time she managed to publish her first creative writing project, a five-volume folklore series for children called “Who Told The Most Incredible Story?”
65 | Artist | United Kingdom
Claudette Johnson
A founder of the BLK Art Group, Claudette Johnson’s work played a key role in the Black feminist art movement in the UK in the 1980s. In the years since, Johnson has been celebrated with notable exhibitions at venues like the Courtauld Gallery and Modern Art Oxford for her powerful portrayal of Blackness. Through it all, Johnson never had a solo show in the U.S, but that changed in 2023, when she saw her work hosted by Ortuzar Projects in Tribeca. In 2024, Johnson was nominated for a Turner Prize (for this solo show) and was elected to the Royal Academy of the Arts.
57 | CEO, Sintesa Group | Indonesia
Shinta Kamdani
Shinta Widjaja Kamdani is the CEO of Sintesa Group, one of Indonesia’s most substantial investment firms covering a range of industries, including palm oil, geothermal energy, real estate and other businesses. Kamdani became the group’s CEO in 1999 and has used her leadership perch to improve the company’s sustainability practices. She has focused on geothermal energy and solar alongside traditional gas-powered energy, while also working to gain sustainable palm oil certification. Kamdani serves as the chair of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) and served as the B20 president in 2022.
54 | Author | South Korea
Han Kang
In October 2024, at age 53, South Korean novelist Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” She is the first Asian woman to win the award in its 123-year-old history. The novel that earned her the recognition, “The Vegetarian,” also received the International Booker Prize for fiction in 2016. Her other notable works include “Human Acts,” “The White Book,” “Greek Lessons,” and “We Do Not Part.” Kang grew up surrounded by books as the daughter of novelist Han Sung-won.
56 | Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa | South Africa
Koyo Kouoh
For the past six years, Koyo Kouoh has served as the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. It’s the largest museum in the world dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora. In 2026, Kouoh will serve as the 2026 Venice Biennale’s artistic director, the first African woman to hold this high-profile position. Earlier in her career, Kouoh founded an artist’s residency and exhibition space—the RAW Material Company—and she served as a cultural officer for the U.S. Consulate.
91 | Television Host | Japan
Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
When Tetsuko Kuroyanagi recorded the 12,100th episode of her talk show, “Tetsuko’s Room,” in September 2023, a Guinness World Record representative was on hand to give her the award for most consecutive episodes of a talk show hosted by the same presenter. Kuroyanagi didn’t stop there. She jokes that she’ll keep hosting until she turns 100, and celebrating the start of 2025 with her 1.2 million Instagram followers, noting that the show is entering its 50th year and feels more energized than ever. (“I will climb Mt. Fuji and ski,” she said.) Outside of her show’s set, Kuroyanagi is an accomplished writer: Her autobiography, “Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window,” sold over 25 million copies worldwide and became a TV series.
57 | Cofounder and CEO, Vivo | Kenya
Wandia Gichuru
Wandia Gichuru started her career working in international development but has found her greatest professional impact through her fashion brand, Vivo. What began as a two-person store in Nairobi in 2011 has turned into a veritable fashion group with an e-commerce arm (Shop Zetu) and 29 brick-and-mortar stores on the African continent. In 2024, Gichuru opened her first shop in the U.S.—a storefront in Atlanta, Georgia—and Kenyan President William Ruto attended the ribbon-cutting, calling Vivo “East Africa’s largest fashion brand.” Gichuru is committed to using her business to create financial opportunities for others, and 100% of Vivo’s designing and manufacturing is done in Kenya. “In a part of the world where there is so much unemployment, we need to see the potential of this industry to create more jobs,” she has said.
61 | CEO, LG Household and Health | South Korea
Lee Jung-ae
Lee Jung-ae is the CEO of LG Household and Health Care, the first and only female CEO of a subsidiary in the leading South Korean conglomerate. She first joined the conglomerate in 1986 and rose through the ranks before becoming group CEO in 2022. In her role, she oversees the division selling beauty, cleaning and beverage brands, including cosmetics line The Whoo and soap brand Dr. Groot, as well as distributing Coca-Cola products. She has announced plans to bring LG beauty to the US, and is also pursuing mergers, acquisitions, and the development of AI-assisted e-commerce strategies.
65 | Professor, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute | Sweden
Astrid Linder
The world got its first female crash test dummy in 2022, thanks to engineer Astrid Linder. Linder had long researched traffic safety and the higher rates of whiplash and injury for women in car crashes, and she realized that the average height and weight differences between men and women were contributing to these higher rates of harm for women. So she and her team at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute got to work on a crash test dummy that would help build seatbelts and airbags better suited to protect women. Her work has won the EU Champions of Transport Research competition and has been recognized globally.
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57 | Archaeologist and Lawyer | Dominican Republic
Kathleen Martínez
Kathleen Martínez may be getting close to answering a centuries-old question about the whereabouts of Cleopatra’s tomb. After 20 years of searching and painstakingly excavating the Egyptian city of Taposiris Magna, Martínez and her team made a major breakthrough in 2022. The discovery—a 4,281-foot tunnel lying 43 feet underground, carved from sandstone and dating to 280 BC—is a remarkable archeological feat in its own right. Part remains submerged underwater and its purpose still unknown, but Martínez believes it may lead to Cleopatra. The quest to find the tomb is Martínez’s first in the world of archaeology: She started her career as a criminal lawyer in the Dominican Republic.
71 | Founder, Chair And Managing Director, Biocon | India
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s journey began in college, when she followed in her brewmaster father’s footsteps and studied fermentation science. She transitioned into industrial enzyme production while working for Biocon Biochemicals in Ireland, eventually creating Biocon India in 1978. After successfully producing and supplying papain, a papaya-derived enzyme, Mazumdar-Shaw invested in research & development to transform the company into what it is today. More recently, Biocon backed Bicara Therapeutics, a cancer biopharmaceutical firm led by Mazumdar-Shaw’s niece Claire Mazumdar, with Bicara last year listed on Nasdaq with an IPO of $362 million. Now worth approximately $3.6 billion, Mazumdar-Shaw funded a Bengaluru-based cancer center and city infrastructure improvements, among other philanthropic efforts.
57 | Founder and CEO, Melvin Marsh International | Kenya
Flora Mutahi
Flora Mutahi is taking Kenya’s renowned tea to European and Middle Eastern markets through Melvin’s Teas, a company she founded in 1995 and has since turned into Kenya’s largest exporter of black tea. Her entrepreneurial work helped her become the first female chairperson of both the Kenya Association of Manufacturers and the Kenya Private Sector Alliance. Now she’s paying it forward: In her debut book “Brewed to Last,” Mutahi shares the lessons she’s learned in scaling businesses, while personally mentoring a second cohort of women entrepreneurs through a program she launched last fall.
61 | CEO, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance | Pakistan
Sania Nishtar
Sania Nishtar holds one of the most essential jobs in public health: As the CEO of Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, Nishtar is responsible for executing the organization’s goal to vaccinate 500 million children in low-income countries between 2026 and 2030. She was appointed to the role in 2024 after serving as a senator and also special assistant to the prime minister in the Pakistani government. A medical doctor by training and practice, Nishtar first rose to prominence in 1996 by becoming Pakistan’s first female cardiologist. But she had no interest in “talking to rich people for hours about their hypertension,” she has said, and two years later she founded the nonprofit Heartfile to address health inequities in Pakistan.
54 | CEO, Commerzbank | Germany
Bettina Orlopp
Commerzbank appointed Bettina Orlopp as CEO in May 2024. The first female CEO of a major German bank, Orlopp is a 10-year veteran of the company and most recently led its investor relations, tax and treasury departments as its chief financial officer (since March 2020). She was picked to lead the bank through one of the most challenging struggles it faced in its 154-year-old history: Last fall, Italy’s UniCredit launched a raid on Commerzbank to take control of the majority of the shares, leaving Orlopp to advocate for the bank’s independence.
64 | Mural restorer, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris | France
Marie Parant-Andaloro
Marie Parant-Andaloro had worked as a painting restorer at Notre-Dame de Paris for over two decades before a fire devastated the church in 2019. Following that blaze, she led a team of 14 artisans to restore painted murals in three of the church’s chapels. It was challenging, exacting work—partnering with architects, sculptors, stained glass restorers and other experts working to rebuild Notre-Dame within President Emmanuel Macron’s five-year deadline—and Parant-Andaloro has called it one of the most extraordinary projects of her career. Judging from the vibrant results of her work, unveiled to the public when Notre-Dame reopened in December 2024, Parant-Andaloro is absolutely correct to use the word “extraordinary.”
72 | Founder and Director, SPARC | India
Sheela Patel
Sheela Patel is a lifelong advocate for equitable housing and transforming cities to fit the needs of the poorest. In 1984, she founded the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), which runs 11 low-income housing buildings in Mumbai and advocates on behalf of the city’s unhoused and low-income populations. More recently, Patel has helped launch the Roof Over Our Heads campaign, which debuted at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference and aims to improve the lives of 2 billion people living in informal settlements in climate-vulnerable areas by 2050.
60 | Cofounder, Tehtris | France
Éléna Poincet
Building on her experience of 12 years in the French army and another 14 years as an agent in France’s secret service, Éléna Poincet joined forces with renowned hacker Laurent Oudot to cofound a cybersecurity startup called Tehtris in 2009. Promising to provide companies with a way to protect their businesses with automated responses to cyber attacks, they raised some $45 million in 2022 in a round led by French private equity firm Jolt Capital. Total funding stands at roughly $68 million.
75 | Co-Creative Director, Prada | Italy
Miuccia Prada
The granddaughter of Prada’s founder, Miuccia Prada inherited the business with her brothers in 1977. At the time, it was a leather goods store in need of a refresh. Over the following decade, Miuccia turned Prada into a leading luxury fashion house. In 1993, she launched a sister brand, Miu Miu, coined for Miuccia’s own nickname. Miuccia served as the Prada Group’s chairwoman from 2003 to 2014—during which time the company went public] on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange—and was co-CEO until 2023. Today, Miuccia is a billionaire with a net worth of $6 billion and remains one of the most influential figures in fashion.
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62 | President | Mexico
Claudia Sheinbaum
Claudia Sheinbaum made history when she was elected Mexico’s first female president in a landslide victory in June 2024. Her swearing-in in October was met with cheers of “Presidenta,” the first time the title was used in Mexico’s Congressional chamber in its 200 years as an independent country. Sheinbaum previously served as Mayor of Mexico City. An accomplished scientific researcher with a Ph.D. in energy engineering, she is among the scientists and policymakers who share the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for participation on a United Nations climate science panel.
54 | Cofounder and CEO, Tipti | Ecuador
Pierangela Sierra
After a decade-long stint at Colgate-Palmolive and 14 years at Coca-Cola, Pierangela Sierra entered entrepreneurship in 2016 with Tipti, an online delivery service in Ecuador. Translated to “time for you,” Tipti works with companies like supermarket Mercado or retailer Crocs to deliver goods right to consumers’ doorsteps. The company of nearly 900 employees generated $83 million in revenue in 2024 (its only funding was a $3 million seed round in 2022). Sierra also recently launched the Tipti Tech Academy for Ecuadorian women over 18 who want to pursue careers in software development. The United Nations has recognized her as a leading advocate for e-commerce in Latin America.
60 | Social Media Influencer | China
Su Min
In her late 50s, Su Min left a dreary domestic life to follow her dream of traversing China, and now she’s a travel influencer and a feminist icon. Su, formerly a factory worker and dumpling seller, decided to separate from her abusive husband in 2019 and hit the road, documenting her travels on social media as “road trip auntie.” Su has traveled some 180,000 miles across 10 Chinese provinces, and accrued millions of followers on Douyin and Weibo—many of whom are women who see her as an inspiration. Su dictated an autobiography of her journey, and director Li Yinchuan took her life as inspiration for the 2024 film, “Like a Rolling Stone.”
56 | Founder and Principal Architect, MTA | Bangladesh
Marina Tabassum
Marina Tabassum is the brains and creative power behind some of Bangladesh’s most iconic structures, including the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque (winner of the 2016 Aga Khan Award for Architecture) and the Museum of Independence Monument. Growing up in a country highly vulnerable to climate change has given her work a more urgent purpose: During the pandemic, she and her team at Marina Tabassum Architects launched a project to build mobile homes, known as “tiny homes,” for those affected by flooding. Today, Tabassum’s innovative designs are celebrated globally, with a solo exhibition in Germany in 2023.
59 | Actress and Writer | Brazil
Fernanda Torres
Fernanda Pinheiro Monteiro Torres became the first Brazilian ever to win a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) in January 2025 for her role in I’m Still Here. Incidentally, the first Brazilian ever nominated for the award was her mother, Fernanda Montenegro. Torres’ acting career started when she was 13, and over four decades later, she has racked up numerous awards across her work in films and theatre—including, as of January 2025, an Oscar nomination for her work in I’m Still Here. When Torres isn’t acting, she’s writing: Her first novel, The End, was published in 2013, sold over 200,000 copies and was translated into seven languages.
57 | Founder and CEO, Institute for Quality | Saudi Arabia
Hayat Sindi
A renowned biotechnologist with nine patents to her name, Hayat Sindi decided in 2022 to expand the reach of her science: That year she founded the Institute for Quality, a consulting firm dedicated to supporting organizations from the lens of science and technology. Sindi is no stranger to being a founder; she previously launched a nonprofit called Diagnostics For All, which creates affordable diagnostic devices for point-of-care use in underserved communities, and ran i2, which offers mentorship to tech-bound youth in Saudi Arabia. In 2013, Sindi became one of the first women to join the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia.
60 | CEO, Japan Airlines | Japan
Mitsuko Tottori
Today, Mitsuko Tottori occupies Japan Airlines (JAL)’s chief executive seat as the international carrier’s first female president and CEO. The story of her ascent began 40 years ago as a member of the cabin crew with TOA Domestic, the airline that in 2001 merged with the one she oversees today. For 20 years, she worked as a flight attendant, and in 2005, was named as a manager in the cabin attendant department. She worked her way up from this role, overseeing JAL’s cabin safety operations and customer experience operations before being named to the company’s top post in January 2024.
62 | Prosecutor-General | Japan
Naomi Unemoto
Last July, Naomi Unemoto became Japan’s first female chief prosecutor—the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Attorney General—in the century-and-a-half history of its modern justice system. A graduate of Chuo University, she was appointed as a public prosecutor in 1988 and steadily rose through Japan’s legal ranks over the ensuing 36 years. Unemoto likely won’t be the last in the top job, as today, almost half of incoming Japanese prosecutors are female. “Among those legal trainees that are suitable to be prosecutors, we find the numbers of women is increasing because more have the requisite passion for the truth, leadership and communication skills,” she told her alma mater.
81 | President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology | Pakistan
Shahnaz Wazir Ali
Shahnaz Wazir Ali has worked as a teacher, administrator, activist and government official—and through all of these roles, she’s been a consistent advocate for education and women’s rights. In 1988, she began her first of three terms in government, starting as a member of the national assembly and later becoming an advisor to the Prime Minister on Social Sectors. She has also worked as a senior specialist on education for the World Bank. Today she serves as a trustee for the Education Trust Nasra Schools, a school system for low-income communities founded by her mother, and the president of Karachi’s Szabist University.
58 | Scientist | Singapore
Jackie Ying
Jackie Yi-Ru Ying is one of the scientists who truly defined nanoscience and nanotechnology, having contributed more than 350 research papers to the field. After completing a Ph.D. at Princeton, she joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001 and became their youngest full professor at 35. She then returned to her home country of Singapore, where she founded and led the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, raising it from obscurity to producing more than 650 patents and over 1,330 research papers. Ying now works at the NanoBio Lab, Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
52 | Founding and Managing Partner, BAI Capital | China
Annabelle Yu Long
Annabelle Yu Long is the founder and managing partner of Bertelsmann Asia Investments. In this role, she has been a hawk for lucrative VC investments in Chinese startups. Long began her career as a producer and anchor for radio and broadcast news outlets, leading her to join the Bertelsmann Group, an established German media firm, in the 2000s. In 2008, she founded BAI Capital, Bertelsmann’s venture capital firm in China, and led smart investments in startups, including fashion e-commerce company Mogu, online used car marketplace Uxin Group, and streaming platform Bigo. She is on the board of Tapestry and LexinFintech Holdings, among others.
This list was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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