From Ursula von der Leyen to Taylor Swift, these 100 women are wielding power in new ways.
As economic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions reshape the global order in 2024, a critical question emerges: Is women’s power advancing or retreating? Look at the highest reaches of power – they remain stubbornly male-dominated. Three of the world’s four largest economies have never been helmed by a woman. Kamala Harris, whose rise to Vice President signaled progress, met a decisive defeat in her bid for the presidency. Silicon Valley’s five largest companies have yet to appoint a woman CEO, while on Wall Street, only Citigroup’s Jane Fraser leads a major bank. Overall, women lead just 8% of S&P 500 companies, suggesting that decades of momentum have only yielded incremental gains.
Yet focusing solely on these metrics misses a profound shift that Forbes’ 2024 list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women reveals: while the established hierarchies remain resistant to change, women are increasingly controlling the critical intersections where industries transform. From AI infrastructure to market systems to policy frameworks, their decisions ripple across multiple sectors and societies. Their influence flows not from traditional authority but from strategic positions at the nexus of change, revealing a new and potentially more consequential kind of power.
This power dynamic is clear at the summit of global influence. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (No. 1) and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde (No. 2) together shape the destiny of the EU’s $18 trillion economy, their decisions determining everything from AI regulation to climate policy. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni (No. 3) steers the EU’s third-largest economy through a significant transition, while Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum (No. 4), the nation’s first female president, leads the world’s 15th-largest economy at a moment of regional transformation.
Nowhere is this shift more evident than in the architecture of our AI future. Lisa Su (No. 26) transformed AMD from an industry afterthought into a crucial force in artificial intelligence, with its stock surging nearly 50-fold during her 10-year tenure. At Oracle, Safra Catz (No. 17) has engineered one of technology’s most dramatic cloud transformations. Even more striking, a remarkable concentration of female CFOs—including Colette Kress (No. 55) at Nvidia (now worth $3 trillion), Amy Hood (No. 23) at Microsoft, and Susan Li (No. 41) at Meta—are building global AI infrastructure as these companies reshape every industry. Ruth Porat’s (No. 12) elevation to president and Chief Investment Officer at Alphabet signals how the CFO role has become a crucial pathway to broader influence in tech’s most influential companies.
Perhaps most striking is how influence can emerge from unexpected quarters. At just 22, basketball phenomenon Caitlin Clark (No. 100) demonstrates how rapidly the rules of power can change. By consistently outdrawing men’s championships and shattering WNBA viewership records before her first professional game, she’s forcing entire industries to rewrite their assumptions about market value and economic potential. Her impact reaches beyond sports into media rights, advertising, and cultural expectations.
This pattern of transformation extends across sectors. As President and COO of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell (No. 25) has built the company into a $210 billion force in commercial space, trusted by NASA, the U.S. military, and the European Space Agency for their most critical missions. Taylor Swift (No. 23) isn’t merely breaking touring records with her billion-dollar Eras tour – she’s rewriting music industry economics, spurring federal antitrust scrutiny of Ticketmaster, and reshaping how artists approach ownership and touring. In streaming, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria (No. 62) and Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke (No. 65) not only control the algorithms and data that determine what billions watch, but which voices and stories shape global culture.
This clustering of female influence extends powerfully into global finance and policy. Women increasingly shape market infrastructure – Adena Friedman (No. 46) at NASDAQ, Lynn Martin (No. 47) at NYSE, and Bonnie Chan (No. 61) at Hong Kong Exchange are reimagining capital flows in an increasingly digital economy. In economic policy, a powerful cohort has emerged: Rachel Reeves (No. 39) as UK Chancellor, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (No. 28), Australian Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock (No. 45) and Indonesia’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati (No. 49), each steering major economies through rapid transformation. The financial sector’s evolution continues as Helen Wong makes history as the first female CEO of Singapore’s OCBC, while Priscilla Almodovar (#38) becomes the only Latina leading an S&P 500 company as Fannie Mae’s CEO.
While some traditional power centers see setbacks – like Karen Lynch’s departure from CVS’s top spot (No. 6 in 2023) – women are gaining ground in sectors increasingly central to global transformation. Janet Truncale’s (No. 44) breakthrough as EY’s first female chief executive signals this shift, as consulting firms become a crucial force in how industries navigate technological and regulatory change.
What emerges is a sophisticated new map of influence. This year’s Power Women oversee $33 trillion in GDP and influence the lives of more than 1 billion people, but their true impact flows from their positions at crucial intersections where industries and systems transform. While the established corridors of power remain resistant to change, women’s influence has never been more profound or far reaching. These leaders prove that in a world where transformation is the currency of influence, women aren’t just participating in change, they’re architecting it. And by this measure, women’s collective power is on the rise.
This article was originally published on forbes.com.
