Most Powerful Women

most powerful women

This is the 21st year we've published <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/09/24/fortune-most-powerful-women-methodology-2018">Fortune’s Most Powerful Women</a> list—and we have a new No. 1 for the first time since 2015. Our 2018 ranking is comprised of seven newcomers, two returnees, and CEOs controlling just under $1 trillion in market cap. Here are the names behind the numbers.



<a href="http://fortune.com/most-powerful-women-international/">Click here to read the International Edition of our Most Powerful Women list.</a>

Nothing says power like rockets and ramparts. Hewson has become the top purveyor of U.S. defense at a time when geopolitical threats (and the government funding that goes along with them) abound—not just on earth, but also in space and cyberspace. As head of the country’s largest government contractor, Hewson rises to No. 1 this year, having positioned Lockheed Martin in the sweet spot to cater to the modern military’s needs—from its humming F-35 fighter jet program to its ability to equip the White House’s proposed “Space Force.” Lockheed is also leading the charge to develop hypersonic weapons, which travel five times as fast as the speed of sound. Such new tech has become a U.S. national security priority given advances in Russia and China, helping Lockheed win about $1 billion in contracts so far in 2018. That’s been a tailwind for the stock, with returns up 15% year over year, boosting Lockheed’s market value to nearly $100 billion. 
 
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<a href="http://fortune.com/longform/lockheed-martin-boeing-women-defense-ceos-trump">Read: Commanders in Chief: The Women Building America’s Military Machine.</a>

Marillyn Hewson

GM hit a few speed bumps in the past year: The Chevrolet Bolt EV, once a bestseller, slipped behind all three of Tesla’s electric cars in sales, while a brewing trade war with China threatened the automaker’s profits. Meanwhile, GM recorded a $3.9 billion loss in 2017, owing largely to the new U.S. tax law. Still, Barra is barreling ahead. She scored a $2.25 billion investment in autonomous-vehicle venture GM Cruise from the SoftBank Vision Fund and plans to deploy GM’s first self-driving cars for ride sharing in 2019.

Mary Barra

Assets under administration climbed 20%, to $6.8 trillion, in 2017 at the country’s largest provider of workplace retirement savings plans, with profits up more than 50%. The exodus from Fidelity’s actively managed stock funds is finally slowing, with investors pulling out $47 billion in 2017, vs. $58 billion in 2016. Even in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal (a pair of portfolio managers were dismissed), Johnson stayed focused on beating competitors, slashing fees, and debuting new products.

Abigail Johnson

After five years of shrinking sales, IBM finally turned the corner in 2018, reporting modest revenue growth in January. Since then, Big Blue has posted a bump in sales each period, much of it coming from the old-school mainframe computing business. It’s a good sign for Rometty, but Wall Street is looking for clearer signals that IBM’s newer businesses, like its cloud-computing and data-crunching units, will lift the company for years to come. IBM’s stock is relatively flat over the past year, vs. a 16% rise for the S&amp;P 500 index.

Ginni Rometty

Health care industry vet Boudreaux makes her return to the list at the helm of Anthem. In the position for less than a year, she’s already put the $90-billion-in-revenue insurer on the right trajectory, with the stock up 45% year over year. Since coming on board, Boudreaux has completed acquisitions of America’s 1st Choice, HealthSun, and Aspire Health. Previously, Boudreaux was CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest division within UnitedHealth Group—before leaving in 2014.

Gail Boudreaux

It’s been a trying year for Facebook and perhaps one of the most challenging in the career of its COO. The social networking giant has been at the center of a seemingly never-ending stream of controversies, leading to a day of congressional grilling for Sandberg, who is now tasked with preventing more data privacy blunders and repairing Facebook’s reputation. The bright side: Facebook’s core online ad business continues to boom, and hot properties like Instagram could make up for its tepid user growth.

Sheryl Sandberg

Catz has turned cloud into a critical part of the Oracle machine, with the business now making up a growing chunk of the company’s nearly $40 billion in revenue. But despite big deals with the likes of AT&amp;T, Oracle was late to the cloud game and is still struggling to play catch-up with rivals Microsoft, Amazon, and Google—and the share price has suffered as a result. Meanwhile, Catz, who first entered Oracle’s C-suite in 2005 as CFO, has upped her public profile, joining the board of Disney in February.

Safra Catz

Novakovic won a steady stream of contracts this year, including a $5 billion agreement to build the latest class of nuclear-armed submarines. But with the Pentagon poised to boost broader defense spending, General Dynamics is also looking beyond hardware for growth. The company did its biggest M&amp;A deal ever in 2018, acquiring IT services firm CSRA for $9.6 billion—which, combined with GD’s existing business, makes the company the nation’s second-largest IT contractor.

Phebe Novakovic

Alphabet’s stock has jumped 25% over the past year as Wall Street continues to admire Porat’s streamlining of the company’s enormous business. The CFO has told analysts that Alphabet’s investment in data center infrastructure and machine-learning tech will continue to fuel its surging online ad business, music to the ears of profit-focused investors. Porat has also emphasized the importance of Google’s growing cloud-computing business, which posted $1 billion in quarterly sales for the first time this year.

Ruth Porat

YouTube continues to boom under Wojcicki, who reports directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The online video service now counts 1.9 billion monthly users—a growing number from the coveted young-adult market—and each day people watch over a billion hours of video. And while You-Tube has been plagued by fake news and other controversies on its platform, it has (so far) managed to weather the storm better than rivals like Facebook. Analysts estimate that YouTube could make up to $20 billion this year.

Susan Wojcicki

Under Good’s leadership, Duke Energy, which provides electricity to 7.6 million customers, is slowly pivoting away from fossil fuels. It added more than 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy in the past year and announced that it will close seven coal plants over the next three decades. Revenues hit $23.2 billion, and profits were up slightly in 2017. Yet the stock has languished, dropping 6% over the past 12 months—owing in part to what the company says are the short-term effects of new tax regulation.

Lynn Good

Apple’s highest-ranking female exec continues the consumer tech giant’s epic quest to convert its brick-and-mortar stores into destinations. Ahrendts, who joined the board of Ralph Lauren this year, leads about 67,000 people, and her retail business, while not Apple’s fastest-growing, remains huge: eMarketer estimates that combined in-store and online sales are about $74.3 billion. Ahrendts has also been instrumental in expanding Apple’s reach in China, which now counts more than 40 stores.

Angela Ahrendts

Griffith, who first joined Progressive as a claims rep, enters her 30th year at the company in fine fashion. Profits are up 54% over 2016—and investors have taken notice: The stock has surged by more than 48% over the past 12 months. The company is gaining market share; it recently surpassed Allstate to become the third-largest U.S. car insurer and grew net premiums written by 16% in 2017. Also boosting the bottom line: her strategy of selling bundles of auto plus home insurance, which were up 30% last year.

Tricia Griffith

McKenna was promoted in February from Walmart U.S. COO to head of international—a business that, like everything else at Walmart, is massive. Its $118 billion in revenue would land it at No. 44 on the Global 500 if it were a stand-alone company. McKenna is overseeing a radical transformation of the portfolio, including Walmart’s acquisition of an approximately 77% stake in India’s largest online retailer, Flipkart. The $16 billion deal is the biggest ever in both the pure e-commerce sector and Walmart’s history. 
 
<a href="http://fortune.com/longform/walmart-international-flipkart-judith-mckenna">Read: Meet the Woman Running Walmart's Biggest Deal Ever.</a>

Judith McKenna

Already responsible for most of Aetna’s revenue, Lynch is set to take on an even greater role following CVS’s $69 billion acquisition of the company. She will preside over the health insurance side of the combined entity, guiding it through a union that could shift drug and insurance prices across America. It’s little wonder she’s being tapped: Lynch helped please shareholders with a smoother-than-expected exit from Aetna’s unprofitable Affordable Care Act business, with shares up 25% year over year.

Karen Lynch

Campbell started her career at Home Depot as a cashier in South Florida. Now, 33 years later, she oversees 2,000 stores and about 90% of the company’s $101 billion in revenue, which is up nearly 7% over the previous year. In December the company announced an $11 billion investment plan, with nearly half going to brick-and-mortar locations. In addition to giving stores a face-lift, Campbell is adding lockers for self-service and online sales, since 47% of Home Depot’s online orders are picked up at physical locations.

Ann-Marie Campbell

Nicholson runs the largest car rental company in the world with a global fleet of 2 million vehicles—more than twice that of her next largest competitor. Despite consumers’ growing use of car-sharing and ride-hailing apps, the company, which rents cars through Enterprise, Alamo, and National Car Rental, grew revenue by 8% to $24 billion last year. Enterprise has also made some forward-looking moves this year, including entering a deal with Voyage, an autonomous-vehicle startup, to service and maintain its fleet.

Pam Nicholson

On Engelbert’s watch, Deloitte has made big bets on technologies like blockchain, robotics, and cloud, including a splashy 2018 partnership with Google and SAP. Revenue, meanwhile, has been on the rise, reaching $19.9 billion in fiscal 2018, up more than 23% from when she took the reins in 2015. Such growth has endeared her to many in the Big Four accounting firm, yet it remains unclear whether she will serve a second term; her current four-year term expires in spring 2019.

Cathy Engelbert

Considered by her boss, Jamie Dimon, to be one of the quickest minds he’s encountered, Lake plays more of a copilot’s role in running America’s largest bank. The CEO’s mention of Lake in a succession-planning missive early this year solidified her status on a short list of candidates for the top job when Dimon eventually retires. Lake’s shepherding of the bank’s stress-testing submissions has helped JPMorgan Chase mostly sail through the process while allowing it to up its dividends and other shareholder payouts.

Marianne Lake

In the five years since becoming CFO, Hood has been a key architect of the tech company’s renaissance, during which its stock has returned nearly 300% (including more than 50% in the past year alone). In June, Microsoft celebrated hitting $100 billion in fiscal-year revenue for the first time, as well as the acquisition of developer forum GitHub, a $7.5 billion deal Hood helped engineer. A booming cloud business helped lift total revenue 14% in fiscal 2018—the company’s fastest sales growth in a decade.

Amy Hood

After five years as a top lieutenant, Gass is in the driver’s seat at Kohl’s at last. The no-frills department store chain is enjoying a rebirth fueled by some of Gass’s moves, such as lining up Under Armour as a partner and, more daringly, striking up a partnership with Amazon by giving that rival space at some stores. Gass was also key to rejiggering Kohl’s popular shopper loyalty program and pushing the chain to be an early mover in the activewear boom. The result was one of the best holiday seasons in 2017 of any retailer.

Michelle Gass

Northrop Grumman’s next—and first female—CEO has been on a rocketride up the defense contractor’s ranks: Once head of Northrop’s tech-centric mission systems division, Warden was promoted last fall to president and COO, then quickly tapped to take over the top job, effective Jan. 1, 2019. An expert in military-grade IT and cybersecurity, Warden’s latest focus has been overseeing the integration of Orbital ATK, the precision weapon and satellite maker Northrop acquired in June for $9.2 billion.

Kathy Warden

A three-decade Boeing vet, Caret now presides over one of the nation’s top five defense businesses, a division with a top line nearly as big as the revenue of competitors Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Caret also beat out rivals this summer when Boeing won a highly sought $805 million contract with the U.S. Navy to provide drones for refueling fighter jets—Boeing’s first major new Pentagon program in years. That and other new deals are putting Caret’s division on track to grow revenue for the first time since 2013. 
 
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<a href="http://fortune.com/longform/lockheed-martin-boeing-women-defense-ceos-trump">Read: Commanders in Chief: The Women Building America’s Military Machine.</a>

Leanne Caret

Williams made history when she joined the list last year as the first Latina to run a Fortune 500 company. Since then, PG&amp;E’s finances have been scorched by the California wildfires, sending the stock tumbling by about a third. In June the company took a $2.5 billion charge against earnings for potential fire-related liabilities and in the future may face other fines related to the disaster. On a brighter note: PG&amp;E last year met California’s 2020 renewable energy goals three years ahead of schedule.

Geisha Williams

Keane had a rough summer: In July, Synchrony revealed that, as of 2019, it will lose its business issuing Walmart-branded credit cards to Capital One, bringing its nearly two-decade relationship with the mega-retailer to an end. With Walmart accounting for over 10% of the company’s interest and fees on loans, the loss has fomented worries that other major partners may also eye alternatives. But it’s not all gloom and doom—Synchrony recently agreed to extend its partnership with PayPal.

Margaret Keane

Erdoes’s money management division at JPM reached a record $2.8 trillion in assets last year—spinning off enough revenue to qualify for the Fortune 500 if it were a stand-alone company. That’s led to new responsibilities for Erdoes, including co-oversight of the bank’s chief administrative office and a new data-driven business she created featuring digital wealth management tools. Still, she has suggested there’s more work to do at the unit, which had layoffs this summer.

Mary Callahan Erdoes

Ross had a banner year, with profits jumping 22%, to $1.4 billion, and sales up 10%, breaking the $14 billion revenue mark for the first time. In August, the press-shy Rentler upped the California-based off-price retailer’s total longterm store-count target to 3,000 locations (it has just under 1,700 today), and in September the stock hit an all-time high. The smooth ride could get a bit rockier, though; the company is forecasting earnings per share for the second half of the year that are below analyst expectations.

Barbara Rentler

Under Hollub’s leadership, Occidental outperformed the market in 2017 despite depressed oil prices globally, with shares up more than 25% year over year. Since becoming CEO in 2016, she’s focused on cost cutting, and her strategy seems to be working: After losing $574 million in her first year at the helm, the energy explorer turned a $1.3 billion profit last year. Hollub also pushed for an expansion of Occidental’s operations in the Southwest’s Permian Basin, growing revenue 29% to $13.3 billion last year.

Vicki Hollub

Mylan is still singed from the firestorm that erupted two years ago over price hikes to its EpiPen allergy shot. As pressure from President Trump and regulators has constrained drug pricing, Bresch is struggling to make money in the U.S.—particularly after cannibalizing Mylan’s own sales by launching a generic EpiPen. After a 20% drop in North American revenue in the first half of 2018, Mylan lowered its financial outlook for the year, and the board now says it’s exploring strategic options, which could include a merger.

Heather Bresch

Ford was promoted into the top job from the chief operating officer role in August, taking over the nearly $14-billion-in-revenue co-op at a challenging time for the agriculture industry. The operations guru has helped Land O’Lakes look beyond its core dairy business, investing in technology and R&amp;D such as its ag-tech platform. Now Ford, who made history when she became the first openly gay female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, will have to grapple with the tariffs placed on U.S. dairy goods and grain in response to President Trump’s trade war. She’s the first woman to run the co-op and the latest addition to the small group of female CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies.

Beth Ford

A member of the German technology giant’s managing board, Davis oversees all activity in the Americas and serves as CEO of Siemens Energy. That puts her in charge of more than half the revenue of the $92 billion company: In fiscal 2017, the Americas region brought in $26.6 billion in revenue, while Siemens’s energy portfolio had sales of $23.3 billion. She also oversaw Siemens’s massive Egypt Megaproject, which was completed in July and increased the country’s power generation capacity by more than 40%.

Lisa Davis

Sweet’s North America business, which accounts for roughly half of Accenture’s revenue, edged up nearly 4% in 2017, to $16.3 billion. The company is pushing aggressively into digital, cloud, and security services (Accenture calls the trio “the New”); they now account for about half of her region’s business. Investors seem to like the tech focus: The stock is up 27% over the past 12 months. Sweet is also investing in her people—Accenture has trained 60% of its North American workforce in new IT this year.

Julie Sweet

Brewer sits both on the board and in the C-suite of the coffee giant: She was already a Starbucks director when the company tapped her in September 2017 to head up operations and the $15.7 billion Americas business. Now the former CEO of Walmart’s Sam’s Club division is drawing on her retail expertise to reverse a sales slowdown in the U.S. market—a slide that has contributed to a 5% decline in Starbucks stock so far this year. To help, Brewer is focusing on the company’s digital rewards program—membership is up 14% year over year—as well as closing stores in dense urban markets and opening new ones in the middle of the country and the South to expand geographically in the U.S.

Roz Brewer

Like Fidelity overall, Murphy’s retail investing business posted strong numbers in 2017: Client assets surpassed $2 trillion, up 20% year over year, for its sixth consecutive year of record growth. Her division made news in August when Fidelity announced the industry’s first zero-fee stock-index funds, cut fees on other index mutual funds, and did away with investment minimums. The moves raised—or perhaps lowered—the bar for Fidelity’s competitors in the battle to woo cost-sensitive investors.

Kathleen Murphy

In 2016, Wells Fargo gave Mack a critical task: fixing its scandal-plagued community banking division. With that mission still a work in progress, CEO Timothy Sloan handed her yet another troubled segment in December: consumer lending, which had just been hit by fines for unfair loan charges. But while management seems to trust Mack’s ability to lead a turnaround, Wells Fargo’s reputation remains on the ropes, with investors wondering whether the bank will ever manage to clean up the mess.

Mary Mack

Even in the face of persistently low interest rates in the U.S., Manning has continued to grow the top life reinsurer. Reinsurance Group of America’s revenue increased 9% in 2017 to a record-breaking $12.5 billion, thanks in part to the company’s push into Asia. That business grew 33% last year amid rising interest in reinsurance in the region. Still, Manning’s job is not without its challenges. A deadly flu season in North America kept earnings subdued, heading into early 2018.

Anna Manning

Taubert, who was promoted from her role overseeing pharmaceuticals in the Americas in June, runs the drug business that accounted for nearly 50% of the company’s 2017 revenue. In her previous role, she was a key advocate for J&amp;J’s acquisition of Actelion, a $30 billion deal that was completed last summer. In the past 12 months, popular drugs like Darzalex and Imbruvica have led to double-digit growth in Taubert’s pharmaceutical segment and buoyed the company’s total revenue to $76.5 billion.

Jennifer Taubert

Doughtie hit some rough patches in the past year, including when former partners were charged with fraud in January. This spring, the firm revealed plans to add new independent directors to improve corporate governance. Doughtie has soldiered on, growing revenue 4% to $8.96 billion in 2017. The company is continuing its investment in A.I. and data analytics, announcing a new alliance with Google Cloud and expanding existing partnerships with IBM Watson and Microsoft.

Lynne Doughtie

Van Kralingen’s responsibilities at IBM include overseeing some of the company’s biggest customer accounts (think Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and CVS Caremark) and managing key partnerships with the likes of Apple and SAP. She’s also spearheading IBM’s push into cutting-edge technologies like blockchain that the company believes are key for future growth. Nearly one-third of IBM’s $79 billion in annual revenue falls under her purview, which encompasses a team of roughly 12,000 IBM workers.

Bridget van Kralingen

Named to her new post in July, Grier now leads more than 72,000 people, represents the firm in regulatory matters, and oversees the $15.6 billion in revenue generated by the Americas business, EY’s largest. The promotion comes 28 years into her career at EY, where she previously led the central U.S. region, serving many of the firm’s biggest audit and advisory clients. Her tenure heading up the Americas is off to a good start: The region had a strong fiscal year 2018, with revenues up more than 7% over last year.

Kelly Grier

Hanlon oversees 795 stores in 24 states—a roughly $30 billion purview that’s been critical to maintaining Home Depot’s ongoing retail winning streak. Even though housing sales have declined, consumers are still spending big money on DIY projects. In August the company reported the highest quarterly sales and net earnings in its almost 40-year history, beating analyst expectations and upping its own guidance. Investors like what they see: The stock is up 32% over the past 12 months.

Crystal Hanlon

Buck has wasted no time since taking the helm of the iconic candy company last year. In January, Hershey bought SkinnyPop maker Amplify Snack Brands for $1.6 billion—the biggest deal in the $7.5 billion company’s history. The acquisition is part of Buck’s strategy to adjust to consumers’ changing tastes by adding healthier snacks to its lineup. But she is also battling rising transportation, packaging, and ingredient costs, and investors are unimpressed so far. The stock is down 4% year over year.

Michele Buck

Morgan, an MPW “On Our Radar” pick in 2017, has had a speedy rise at SAP, going from head of regulated businesses to overseeing all of the Americas, Japan, and Asia Pacific in just five years. Her sprawling territory brought in more than $14 billion in revenue in 2017 and accounted for some 70% of the company’s cloud subscription and support revenue. The first-ever American woman to sit on SAP’s executive board, Morgan is also known for investigating—and closing—SAP North America’s gender pay gap.

Jennifer Morgan

Tastad is trying to reignite revenue growth in the consumer giant’s $30 billion North America business, the company’s biggest and most profitable region. To do so, the P&amp;G lifer is upping prices on key brands as she faces rising materials costs, increased competition, and a changing consumer landscape—headwinds that have in part triggered a 10% year-over-year decline in the stock. Tastad is doubling down on innovation, launching new products like Herbal Essences Bio: Renew and Tide Simply Plus Oxi.

Carolyn Tastad

Dillon has overseen one of the most spectacular retail expansion stories ever, and she is convincing investors—who have sent the stock up 25% year over year—that she can keep building Ulta. With online sales rising nearly 40% a quarter, an industry-leading loyalty program, and all the new high-end beauty brands she’s lined up, it’s clear Ulta continues to prove a traditional retailer can battle Amazon. Dillon recently joined the board of private equity giant KKR, further cementing her status as a power broker.

Mary Dillon

Foulkes finally landed a CEO job in 2018. It just wasn’t at CVS Health, where she had been leading its $81 billion retail pharmacy business. Instead, Foulkes moved to a different part of the retail universe, in February becoming CEO of Hudson’s Bay, a sprawling and money-losing conglomerate of department stores. She has moved quickly to fix the business, selling off Gilt Groupe, closing Lord &amp; Taylor’s flagship, and merging HBC’s struggling Kaufhof chain with a German rival. But will it be enough?

Helena Foulkes

In 2017, Mulligan led Guardian Life, known for its dental and whole life insurance businesses, to record earnings and handed out $913 million in dividends to policyholders—another annual record. While much of Guardian’s growth can be attributed to the small-business market, where it’s the third-largest insurer, Mulligan is pushing the company into new markets. Earlier this year, Guardian targeted workers in the growing gig economy with the launch of an online insurance marketplace geared toward individuals.

Deanna Mulligan

Last year Hammer grew profits and revenue for an unprecedented 14th consecutive year, raking in nearly $3 billion and $6 billion, respectively, despite increased competition. Her networks, which include USA, Bravo, and E!, average some 100 million viewers a week, helping make her portfolio the largest profit generator within NBCUniversal. The long-serving cable chief also negotiated key deals, including tying down the valuable World Wide Wrestling Raw series on USA through 2024.

Bonnie Hammer

A decade after the financial crisis, BofA is finally performing again for investors—its stock price has nearly doubled over the past two years—and Finucane can take much of the credit. She oversees the bank’s customer data analytics, which helped its consumer and wealth-management group reap $11 billion in profit in 2017. She also leads its capital deployment group, which focuses on socially responsible lending and investing. Finucane’s biggest looming challenge: guiding the bank in Europe post-Brexit.

Anne Finucane

When Marinello stepped in as CEO of Hertz in 2017, the car-rental industry was in disarray, with upstarts like Uber and Lyft providing an alternative to renting. Facing losses of nearly $500 million that fiscal year, she knew Hertz was in need of drastic change. After instituting a tech overhaul and downsizing of its fleets, Hertz saw a profit of $327 million in 2017. Now it’s speeding into the next phase of its turnaround, rolling out new systems to improve customer experience and streamline the rental process.

Kathryn Marinello

Welcome back, Oprah. The media mogul was a fixture of the MPW list for years, coming in at No. 6 in 2010 and No. 50 in 2012, before dropping off in 2013 when her cable network, OWN, wasn’t big enough to hold her slot. Now Winfrey’s back, in the 51st spot. After her 2015 investment in Weight Watchers and de facto spokeswoman status, she all but single-handedly revived the company—its stock shot up to a high of $103 in June from $6.79 when the star got on board. The investment helped her make an appearance on the world’s 500 richest people list (the only black female entrepreneur in the bunch). Winfrey also invested this year in True Food Kitchen, a healthy-restaurant chain. And, let’s not forget, Winfrey inspired a political movement with her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes and became a near-serious candidate for President. Plus she found time to star as an omnipotent celestial being in A Wrinkle in Time and keep OWN on an upward trajectory. Oprah’s next act indeed.