Forbes 100 Women Who Rule the World

Forbes magazine has compiled a list of the top 100 women in the world, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, amongst other heads of state, CEOs, entrepreneurs, celebrities and philanthropists, including Hillary Clinton, Melinda Gates, Michelle Obama and Christine Lagarde.

The Power Women 2012 can be categorised as follows:

CEOs: Marissa Mayer, the Google employee who traded her VP post at the search engine for Yahoo!; Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, is now heading up HP, and Sheri McCoy, who moved from J& J to Avon.

Tech Women: Six tech women made the list, including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Google‘s Susan Wojcicki, as well as Cher Wang of HTC and SingTel Group CEO Chua Sock Koong.

Female entrepreneurs: Oprah Winfrey,  Arianna Huffington, Diane von Furstenberg and Miuccia Prada, as well as Zara founder and billionaire Rosalia Mera and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, India’s first biotech entrepreneur.

The New Celebrity Role Models: Lady Gaga, who sings, tweets and has started The Born This Way Foundation; Shakira, Angelina Jolie and Gisele Bundchen, as well as Beyonce, Sofia Vergara and Jennifer Lopez.

Billionaires who do good things with their money: Alice Walton, Laurene Powell-Jobs and Chan Laiwa.
Newsmakers:  Jill Abramson, executive editor of the New York Times, Vogue’s Anna Wintour, and Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren - the longest-serving current cable news anchor.

Healing, feeding and educating the world: Melinda Gates, IMF chief Christine Lagarde, Director-General of World Health Organization Margaret Chan, World Food Programme Executive Director Ertharin Cousin and Harvard University’s Drew Gilpin Faust.