Alison Watkins is the lone Australian on the list.
Just one Australian woman makes Fortune’s international list of the 50 most powerful businesswomen in the world.
That woman is Alison Watkins, the group managing director of Coca-Cola Amatil, who makes the list for leading cost-cutting plans across the Australian arm of the producer and distributor, taking on the 47th spot on the global ranking and the 22nd spot in the Asian ranking. Fortune says she was instrumental in the group posting a 20.5% profit increase in 2015, just one year after taking the top job.
The global list excludes Americans – they get their own list – and sees 19 countries represented, with Chinese women dominating the list, followed by women from the UK.
So why don’t other Australian women make the list?
While we do have a large number of talented women to choose from, some of our more prominent female leaders have retired or stood down from their most influential platforms in recent years. Gail Kelly resigned from the CEO post at Westpac in February 2015. Catherine Livingstone stepped down from the chair position at Telstra in February 2015. There are a number of women holding influential positions in large organiations — such as Harvey Norman chief Katie Page, Mirvac chief Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, Sydney Airport chief Kerrie Mather, Jetstar chief Jayne Hrdlicka, and Transfield Chair Diane Smith-Gander – but the volume of women in such positions still isn’t huge, meaning fewer chances to demonstrate significant influence amongst the best on the world stage.
Meanwhile, Australia has a number of young women leading and co-founding major tech companies on the rise, like Canva’s Melanie Perkins, meaning future lists could see influential entrepreneurs make the cut. We hope.
So what do you have to do to get to the top of such a list? Try leading a bank, for starters, and steer it through turbulent time. From there, you have a small window of opportunity. Most women on this list are in their late fifties and early sixties. There’s not one woman featured who’s seventy or over, and just a couple of women in their thirties. And don’t get burned too early trying to fix a broken company — you’ll drop off the list and will be unlikely to ever make it again.
In the top spot is Ana Botin, who leads Spain’s Banco Sanstander, the Eurozone’s largest bank by market value. Fortune says she steered her organisation through difficult times in 2015 and even managed to post a small growth, according to certain measurements. Still, she’s leading on major cost-cutting measures at the bank, with the company to close hundreds of branches in Spain.
Second on the list is Arundhati Bhattacharya, who chairs the State Bank of India. Fortune says she’s been fighting a high-profile battle with bad loans at the bank, while also orchestrating a merger with six groups earlier this year which, once completed, will create one of the largest Asia-based vendors.
Third is France’s Isabelle Kocher, the CEO of Engie, the world’s largest non-state owned electricity company where she’s taken on the huge task of selling billions of dollars of assets and investing in renewable energy. She’s the first Frenchwoman to lead one of Paris’ top 40 companies on its CAC stock market index.
On the US list, GM chief Mary Barra took out the top spot, followed by PepsicCo chair and CEO Indra Nooyi, and Lockheed Martin CEO and chair Marillyn Hewson.
Fortune’s 10 most powerful businesswomen (excluding Americans)
1. Ana Botín, Group Executive Chairman, Banco Santander, Spain, 55
2. Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chair, State Bank of India, India, 60
3. Isabelle Kocher, CEO, Engie, France, 49
4. Chua Sock Koong, Group CEO, Singapore Telecommunications, Singapore, 58
5. Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Bank, India. 54
