The World's Most Powerful Women 2013

Angela Merkel

The annual snapshot of the 100 women with the most impact is up here again with top politicians and CEOs, activist billionaires and celebrities who matter. In roughly equal measure you’ll find next gen entrepreneurs and media mavens, technologists and leaders in philanthropy — all ranked by dollars, media momentum and impact. Continue....

This year the list features nine heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $11.8 trillion including the No. 1 Power Woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 24 corporate CEOs control $893 billion in annual revenues, and 16 of the women here founded their own companies, including two of the three new billionaires to the list, Tory Burch and Spanx’s Sara Blakely. Speaking of, this year’s class has 14 billionaires valued in excess of $82 billion. 
 
Newcomers: Among the 15 newcomers on this year’s list are South Korean President Park Guen-hye (No. 11); Lockheed Martin LMT -0.39% CEO Marillyn Hewson (No. 34); CEO Tory Burch (No. 69);  Spanx founder Sara Blakely (No. 90) and Baidu BIDU -1.56% CFO Jennifer Li (No. 98).
Old friends: At this 10th edition, attention must be paid to the 15 who appeared on the inaugural list in 2004 and are still here today:  Oprah Winfrey (No. 13), of course. Ditto for Hillary Clinton (No. 5). But there’s also  Christine Lagarde (No. 7),  Sonia Gandhi (No. 9), Indra Nooyi (No. 10), Helen Clark (No. 21), Nancy Pelosi (No. 22), Anne Sweeney (No. 24), Amy Pascal (No. 36), Queen Elizabeth II (No. 40), Abigail Johnson (No. 60),  Ho Ching (No. 64), Diane Sawyer (No. 73), J.K. Rowling (No. 93) and Greta Van Susteren (No. 97).