Good morning! Melania Trump breaks White House traditions, ex-OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati builds her new team, and a new Fortune ranking reminds us of how far women still have to go in the business world.
- The very top. This week, Fortune published its first-ever list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business. If that name sounds familiar, well, it may be because readers of this newsletter are well acquainted with our longstanding Most Powerful Women (MPW) list and franchise.
The Most Powerful People list includes both men and women—which leads to a very different ranking. One of the hallmarks of the MPW list is an element of discovery—many women in business wield enormous power behind the scenes, without dominating the headlines. The MPW list also pays special attention to women who may influence business for years to come, like executives who hold roles other than CEO but are prime CEO successor candidates or otherwise expected to continue to rise in their careers.
The Most Powerful People list has a different purpose: to analyze the business world as it is today, not as we wish it could be. Many familiar MPWs—from Ruth Porat at Alphabet to Kathryn McLay at Walmart—are missing from the Most Powerful People list because its methodology gave less weight to No. 2s than No. 1s, the rationale being that if you have a powerful boss, that limits your power (though certainly not your potential, we would expect many of these powerful No. 2s to someday make the MPP list). You can read about the rest of the methodology here.
The Most Powerful People list is dominated by business titans. Elon Musk is ranked No. 1—a designation that, whatever your opinion on Musk, is hard to argue with now that he’s seen as critical in delivering a presidential election for Donald Trump and tapped to head up the “department of government efficiency.” He’s followed by Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Warren Buffett, and JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon.
There are 18 women out of 100 people on the Most Powerful People list—a reflection of the realities of the business world, where women run about 10% of Fortune 500 companies. The top-ranked woman is GM CEO Mary Barra, at No. 9, who was No. 1 on this year’s MPW list (and on the cover of Fortune’s October issue). The other women on the Most Powerful People list include Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, GSK chief Emma Walmsley, Oracle leader Safra Catz, AMD chief Lisa Su, and more. Some rise up the Most Powerful People list compared to their MPW ranking—Anthropic cofounder and MPW list No. 94 Daniela Amodei, for example, is paired with her cofounder and brother Dario and, thus, together they come in at No. 48.
You can peruse the rest of the Most Powerful People list here. Fortune is as committed as ever to our MPW coverage, and the Most Powerful People list, in a way, shows how important that is. While women still wield a fraction of the influence their male peers do in the business world, it’s critical that we cover those who do—and those who will in the future.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
