The international Most Powerful Women list includes female executives from many countries, including Saudi Arabia, which isn’t known for women’s rights. But there are a few countries that truly dominate the list: China and the United Kingdom, for example, account for half of the women present on the two regional lists.
Chinese executives trounced powerful women from other countries, accounting for 13 of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Asia-Pacific. That’s in line with plenty of other statistics from the rising power: it also boasts the most self-made female billionaires in the world. And while the boardrooms in China’s top companies lag in gender equity behind those in the European Union, United States, France, Norway and others, female senior executives seem to fare better. Though 126 of the top 300 companies in China lacked female board members (42%), only 31 of those companies lacked a female senior executive (10.3%) in February. One study by professors at the prestigious Chinese University in Hong Kong found a higher percentage of female CEOs in China (4.5%) than in the United States (4%).
China’s large portion of powerful women can be attributed in part to its rapid economic development, especially since the One Child Policy led Chinese parents to educate their sole children with a gender-neutral zeal. A handful of the women on Coins2Day’s MPW list personify China’s ascent: Zhou Qunfei, the CEO of Lens Technology, grew up motherless in a tiny farming village, helping her family by raising pigs and ducks. She started her career as a teenager making watch parts in a Guangdong factory before opening the shop that would make her the world’s richest self-made woman. Dong Mingzhu of Gree Electric and Wang Fengying of Great Wall Motor boast similar stories, working their way up their respective companies from starting positions as saleswomen over the course of decades.
Of course, it helps China’s case on the list that it is simply the largest country in the world, with more women to start companies and more companies for women to lead.
The United Kingdom, which is home to far fewer women than China, boasts 10 of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Unlike other European countries such as France and Germany, which legislate boardroom gender quotas, the United Kingdom has elevated women in business without much government assistance. Part of that country’s success can be attributed to Helena Morrissey, the CEO of Newton Investment Management and founder of the 30% Club, which has successfully pressured top male chairmen to diversify their boards. In fact, a number of the chairmen of companies with Coins2Day MPW executives—including Goldman Sachs International, GlaxoSmithKline, and EasyJet—are members of the 30% Club’s UK chapter.
France and India followed the United Kingdom in global MPW list representation, with four women on the list each. South Korea and Singapore both had three women on the list. Rounding off the list with one MPW each were: Taiwan, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey.
Here are the countries with three or more women on Coins2Day’s Global Most Powerful Women lists.
China
Dong Mingzhu, Chairperson and President of Gree Electric Appliances. Ranked #4.
Li Dang, President and Director of China General Technology. Ranked #6.
Wang Fengying, CEO and Executive Director of Great Wall Motor. Ranked #7.
Rose Lee Wai Mun, CEO and Vice Chairman of Hang Seng Bank. Ranked #8.
Lucy Peng, CEO, Ant Financial and Chief People Officer at Alibaba. Ranked #11.
Wu Yajun, Chairman of Longfor Properties. Ranked #13.
Maggie Wu, CFO of Alibaba. Ranked #15.
Wei Sun Christianson, Co-CEO, Asia-Pacific, CEO, China at Morgan Stanley. Ranked #17.
Zhou Qunfei, CEO and Co-founder of Lens Technology. Ranked #18.
Rachel Duan, SVP, General Electric, President and CEO of GE Greater China. Ranked #19.
Sun Yafang, Chairwoman of Huawei Technologies. Ranked #21.
Marjorie Yang, Chairman of Esquel. Ranked #24.
Zhang Xin, CEO of Soho China. Ranked #25.
United Kingdom
Alison Cooper, CEO of Imperial Tobacco. Ranked #2.
Ornella Barra, EVP, President and CEO of Global Wholesale and International Retail, Walgreens Boots Alliance. Ranked #5.
Carolyn McCall, CEO of EasyJet. Ranked #7.
Veronique Laury, CEO of Kingfisher. Ranked #8.
Moya Greene, CEO of Royal Mail. Ranked #9.
Serpil Timuray, Regional CEO, AMAP, Vodaphone. Ranked #15.
Elizabeth Corley, Global CEO of Allianz Global Investors. Ranked #17.
Isabelle Ealet, Global Co-Head of Securities, Goldman Sachs. Ranked #18.
Emma Walmsley, CEO, GSK Consumer Healthcare, GSK. Ranked #24.
Ann Cairns, President of International Markets at MasterCard. Ranked #25.
France
Patricia Barbizet, CEO of Groupe Artemis and CEO and Chairman of Christie's International. Ranked #6.
Dominique Senequier, President of Ardian. Ranked #10.
Isabelle Kocher, Deputy CEO and COO of Engie SA. Ranked #19.
Pascale Witz, Executive Vice President of Global Divisions and Strategic Development at Sanofi. Ranked #20.
India
Chanda Kochhar, CEO and Managing Director of ICICI Bank. Ranked #1.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of the State Bank of India. Ranked #2.
Nishi Vasudeva, Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Petroleum. Ranked #5.
Shikha Sharma, CEO and Managing Director of Axis Bank. Ranked #9.
South Korea
Kwon Seon-Joo, CEO and Chairman, Industrial Bank of Korea. Ranked #12.
Hyun Jeong-Eun, Chairwoman, Hyundai Group. Ranked #16.
Lee Boo-Jin, President and CEO of Hotel Shilla and Adviser, Samsung C&T Trading and Investment Group. Ranked #20.
Singapore
Chua Sock Koong, Group CEO of Singapore Technologies. Ranked #3.
Ho Ching, CEO and Executive Director of Temasek. Ranked #10.
Sheila Patel, CEO of International Goldman Sachs Asset Management at Goldman Sachs. Ranked #23.
For the EMEA list, visit coins2day.com/most-powerful-women-europe-middle-east-africa/
For the Asia-Pacific list, visit coins2day.com/most-powerful-women-asia-pacific/
To see the Coins2Day 50 Most Powerful Women list, visit coins2day.com/most-powerful-women.
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