Who Is The World’s Most Powerful Woman?
Spoiler alert: it ain’t Hillary Clinton or Oprah.
For most of the past 20 years, there was very little debate over who the world’s most powerful woman was: Angela Merkel.
The only women in the same ballpark were Janet Yellen during her very brief tenure as Chair of the US Federal Reserve, and Christine Lagarde as managing director of the IMF. An argument could also have been made that Queen Elizabeth II’s fame and vast cultural influence compensated for her lack of official authority.
Many of the world’s leading men in recent years came from the worlds of spirituality (the Pope, the Dalai Lama), tech megacorps (Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos), publishing (Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson), finance (Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon) and crime (Joaquín Guzmán).
Women, by contrast, rise to power mostly through politics or activism. A quick Google Search of “world’s most powerful women” throws up names like Greta Thunberg, Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
Since there is currently no clear successor to Merkel’s reign as the world’s most powerful woman, I…
