• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 8, 2023

Women are moving up the corporate ranks at many well-known companies and brands.

Fortune recently released its 2023 edition of the Most Powerful Women in Business, many of whom are at ad and tech companies. This week it holds its Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, California.

Representing technology are top executives such as Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Alphabet and Google, at No. 8; Safra Catz, CEO at Oracle, at No. 11; Lisa Su, chair and CEO of AMD at No. 12; Amy Hood, executive vice president and CFO of Microsoft at No. 17; Susan Li, CFO of Meta at No. 18; Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, at No. 58; and Fidji Simo, chairperson and CEO of Instacart at No. 74.

Fortune says the list features 67 women with a CEO title. This includes some recent appointments such as Margherita Della Valle, who became the CEO of British telecom Vodafone in April, and Sandy Ran Xu, who took over Chinese ecommerce titan JD.com in May. 

In the first half of 2023, 106 CEOs worldwide left their jobs, and 13% of the replacements were women, up from 2.4% in 2018.

The list represents industries from finance, tech, healthcare and telecom, to retail, and energy, among others.

“Women leaders are meeting the moment,” Fortune writes.

Margherita Della Valle became CEO of British telecom Vodafone in April. Sandy Ran Xu took the helm of the Chinese ecommerce titan JD.com in May. Vanessa Hudson assumed the CEO role at Australia’s flagship carrier Qantas in September. All are the first women to hold their respective jobs.

Other women are making a major impact early in their careers, like Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Alphabet and Google. Porat, No. 8 on the list, is now in charge of the company’s portfolio of “Other Bets” such as self-driving cars and Waymo.

Kath McLay, No. 14 on the list, is president and CEO of Walmart International. McLay oversees a business that operates in 18 countries and includes stakes in companies like ecommerce site Flipkart and payments giant PhonePe in India, a market that Walmart is still trying to enter.

Others who stand out are 34-year-old Mira Murati, the chief technology officer at OpenAI; Susan Li, Meta’s CFO at No. 18; and Leena Nair, CEO at Chanel at No. 70.

Nair heads the 113-year-old brand. At the time she was a human resources executive who had never run a company or had experience with the world of high fashion. She built her career at the global brand Unilever, and that was enough.

For the third consecutive year, Karen S. Lynch, president and CEO of CVS Health, filled the No. 1 spot as the highest-ranking Fortune Global 500 company in the world led by a female chief executive. 

The Top 10 of the list are:

1. Karen S. Lynch, President and CEO, CVS Health (U.S.)
2. Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture (U.S.)
3. Mary Barra, Chair and CEO, General Motors (U.S.)
4. Jane Fraser, CEO, Citigroup (U.S.)
5. Jessica Tan, Executive Director, Co-CEO, Ping An (China)
6. Carol Tomé, CEO, UPS (U.S.)
7. Emma Walmsley, CEO, GSK (U.K.)
8. Ruth Porat, President, CIO, CFO, Alphabet and Google (U.S.)
9. Shemara Wikramanayake, Managing Director and CEO, Macquarie (Australia)
10. Gail Boudreaux, President and CEO, Elevance Health (U.S.)