Most Successful Female CEOs of All Time
The number of women leading major corporations has remained remarkably low throughout the past few decades. Despite this fact, there are still a handful of female CEOs that have achieved incredible successes in their respective fields, long influencing the evolution of their industry while showing the potential of women leaders. Let’s take a look at 15 of the most successful female CEOs of all time.
Mary Barra – General Motors
When Mary Barra was appointed CEO of General Motors in 2014, she was the first woman to ever lead a major automaker. Since taking charge, Barra has been credited with installing smart fiscal management practices and re-attuning the company’s brand messaging to capture the hearts of a new generation of car buyers. In 2018, Barra was also named Fortune Magazine’s “Businessperson of the Year.”
Lynn Good – Duke Energy
Since Lynn Good took office in 2013, Duke Energy’s market capitalization has surged over 30%, with 2020 being its strongest financial performance to date. Good has undertaken several environmental initiatives and the company is now on track to be carbon neutral by 2050. Good is also committed to using technology to reliably deliver electricity across the seven US states it services while minimizing customer costs.
Indra Nooyi – Pepsi Co
As one of the most decorated CEOs in history, Indra Nooyi led Pepsi Co. as CEO for over a decade and as chairman in 2020, still maintaining a role in the strategic direction of the organization. Under Nooyi’s stewardship, Pepsi Co. achieved a total market return of 150%. Nooyi has also been praised for something she calls “Performance with Purpose,” acting as a leader that looks after the well-being of the planet and its people.
Arancha González – International Trade Center
Spain’s Arancha González is one of the few CEOs active today whose task is to promote positive global change. As Executive Director of the International Trade Center, González has championed fairer and more sustainable global trading practices. She has also publicly admitted her tenacity for tackling gender inequality in developing countries, making her something of an international icon.
Ginni Rometty – IBM
Ginni Rometty became IBM’s first female CEO in 2012. Throughout her tenure, Rometty has been responsible for a noted cultural shift within IBM, turning it from a hardware provider to a cloud and cognitive computing powerhouse. She has also overseen the growth of its yearly revenues from $99.8 billion in 2011 to $77.1 billion in 2019, the year she stepped down.
Safra Catz – Oracle
Safra Catz has held two prominent positions of leadership at Oracle since she joined the company in 1999, first as CFO and then as Co-CEO. Catz has been most praised for her fiscal conservation tactics and her great negotiation skills, culminating in Oracle’s purchase of crucial cloud competitor Sun Microsystems in 2010.
Abigail Johnson – Fidelity Investments
Abigail Johnson comes from multiple generations of executives at the top of Fidelity Investments, the giant American financial services provider. As CEO, Johnson was responsible for an increase in the company’s assets under management from 8 trillion dollars in 2014 to 8.2 trillion in 2018, a growth not seen since the 90s.
Meg Whitman – Quibi
Before taking the helm of short-form streaming service Quibi in 2018, Meg Whitman had already enjoyed a decade-long career in the consumer tech space as Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) CEO. Her time at the company saw share prices hit an all-time high. In the same year, Whitman was also credited for running the most successful re-branding campaign in HP’s history.
Shirin Neshat – Revlon
In 2017, Lori Greeley stepped down as CEO of Revlon and in came Shirin Neshat. Neshat has been credited with revamping Revlon’s approach to digital marketing, creating a buzz on social media that saw sales flourish and the company become one of the only major beauty brands to end the year with a profit. Neshat is also championed for her philanthropy efforts and for mentoring female entrepreneurs.
Katharine Weymouth – Washington Post
The sale of the Washington Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was a big turning point for the news organization, and the arrival of Katharine Weymouth as CEO from 2014 to 2020 saw the organization reach new heights. Under Weymouth’s guidance, the Washington Post grew to become the 11th most visited website in the US as of 2020.
Gail Kelly – Westpac Group
Gail Kelly, of the Westpac Group in Australia, served as CEO and managing director of Westpac Banking Corporation from 2008 to 2015. Kelly achieved incredible successes with the company, reporting the highest ever profit in its 200-year history. Her long-term strategies and strong leadership saw productivity increase while the number of dissatisfied customers decreased.
Carol Bartz – Yahoo!
At the end of 2009, Yahoo! appointed Carol Bartz as its new CEO. Bartz was heavily praised for her steadying of the ship and the instant increase in Yahoo’s revenues, with 2020’s revenues estimated at four times what they were when she took office. In a series of cost-saving initiatives, Bartz also managed to reduce 40 percent of Yahoo’s workforce, which still stands as a benchmark for the tech industry today.
Padmasree Warrior – NIO
In 2017, automotive company NIO Inc. brought in Padmasree Warrior as its first female CEO to oversee the growth of its global business. Although the company was still in its fledgling stages at the time, Warrior has since been credited with increasing the company’s market capitalization and managing a successful IPO launch in 2018.
Marillyn A. Hewson – Lockheed Martin
Marillyn A. Hewson is the current CEO of the world’s largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin. Hewson has been praised for her efforts to unlock value by spinning off non-core assets, along with healthy agreements with the US government. She has also been outspoken about her commitment to diversifying Lockheed’s workforce.
Patricia Woertz – Archer Daniels Midland
Patricia Woertz became CEO at the height of the Great Recession in 2008. Since then, Woertz has made impressive progress at Archer Daniels Midland, significantly increasing the company’s revenues and profits during her tenure. Woertz also inspired ADM’s “Renewing America” renewable fuel program, a clever financial investment that has helped the company to remain buoyant and profitable.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo – Philippine Airlines
One of the most influential women of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was a close advisor to Philippine Airlines CEO Jaime Bautista for over a decade. After taking charge in the mid-2010s, Arroyo was credited for turning the bankrupt airline into an operating profit in 2019, the same year it returned to the stock market.
The achievements of these 15 women CEOs have shown that female leadership has a huge level of potential when given the chance. What’s more, these individuals may be from different industries, but all have shared a commitment to corporate responsibility and have gone above and beyond to make their respective companies better for the planet and for their people. Through their successes, these entrepreneurs have established themselves as new icons of leadership and business excellence, inspiring the next generation of female executives to greater feats.
