From heads of state to AI innovators and cultural power players, this year’s list reflects a new era of influence featuring Ursula von der Leyen, Kim Kardashian, the women behind KPop Demon Hunters, and more.
Forbes 2025 The World’s Most Powerful Women
Illustration by Oriana Fenwick for Forbes
New York, NY — December 10 — Forbes today announced its 22nd annual ranking of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, spotlighting the most dynamic female leaders, innovators, and changemakers shaping the global landscape in 2025. This year’s listees represent a new chapter in global leadership, one defined by boundary-pushing innovation, geopolitical impact, culture-shifting influence, and record-breaking financial performance. In total, the list features women from 25 countries, including new additions Namibia and Lithuania, with North America representing the largest share at 50 leaders.
The women Forbes recognized this year are the world in real time: building billion-dollar businesses, commanding global markets, driving scientific and technological breakthroughs, shaping public policy, and defining the cultural moments that move the world. The 2025 ranking evaluates leaders across four pillars of power—money, media, impact, and spheres of influence, and six sectors: business, technology, finance, media & entertainment, politics & policy, and philanthropy. The listees collectively oversee more than $4.9 trillion in revenue, employ over 9.3 million people, and influence countries representing more than half of global GDP.
“As global power structures rapidly shift, this year’s listees are steering the platforms, policies and capital that are redefining the world’s most consequential industries and economies,” said Moira Forbes, Executive Vice President, Forbes. “From technology and finance to policy and culture, these women are not only leading through disruption, they are determining where power is built and deployed next.”
Encompassing the forces shaping today’s global landscape, the Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list features:
- AI Becomes The Ultimate Power Lever: With AI becoming one of the defining forces reshaping global power in 2025, its influence is visible across this year’s ranking with leaders like Julie Sweet (#6) bringing AI into the operational core of the world’s largest enterprises, Ruth Porat (#12) directing billions toward AI infrastructure, and pioneers like AMD’s Lisa Su (#10) and Anthropic’s Daniela Amodei (#73) defining its technical frontier, these leaders are actively writing the next chapter of technological progress.
- CEOs and founders with almost half of the list (44%) holding the CEO title — the highest share in five years — and 10 are founders, reflecting the sustained rise of women building, scaling and running major organizations.
- Heads of state ushering in a new era of women’s political power. This year, 16 world leaders appear on the list, including 8 serving heads of state.
- Financial executives are commanding unprecedented authority over global capital. Veterans like Citi’s Jane Fraser (#8) and Abigail Johnson (#9) at Fidelity and are joined by a new wave of leaders including Kedia Gunjan (#23) at U.S. Bank and Tan Su Shan (#29) at DBS, marking a shift in who influences the world’s financial markets.
- Cultural innovators driving global impact and shaping trends across industries. Entertainment leaders hold a combined social reach of over one billion followers, reflecting the scale of modern influence.
“Power today isn’t confined to any one sector or title, and this year’s list makes that undeniable,” said Maggie McGrath, editor of ForbesWomen. “Technology pioneers like Lisa Su and Daniela Amodei are building the future; political leaders from Japan to Mexico are reshaping the global order; and cultural innovators like the women behind ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ have energized the cultural zeitgeist and mobilized a global audience. These leaders remind us that influence in 2025 moves across borders, industries, and platforms — and women are driving that momentum everywhere.”
Notable newcomers to this year’s list include:
- Sanae Takaichi, Prime Minister, Japan
- Kim Kardashian, cofounder, SKIMS
- The Women of “KPop Demon Hunters”
- Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, President, Namibia
- Inga Ruginienė, Prime Minister, Lithuania
- Julie Gao, CFO, ByteDance
- Sarah Friar, CFO, OpenAI
- Daniela Amodei, Cofounder & President, Anthropic
- Bari Weiss, Editor-in-Chief, CBS News
- Mary Vilakazi, CEO, FirstRand Group
This year’s World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list builds on Forbes’ expanding initiatives celebrating women transforming industries and achieving success. Alongside other lists spotlighting women making an impact, such as America’s Most Powerful Women in Business, the Most Powerful Women in Sports, and Forbes 30 Under 30, Forbes highlights trailblazers across business, media, culture, and, for the first time in 2025, sports, showcasing how female leaders are shaping influence and driving change worldwide.
Additional 2025 Power Women Stats:
- 44 listees are CEOs, up from 42 last year
- 10 founders named, in line with 2024
- Taylor Swift (#21) is the youngest individual lister (35 until December 13), though some of the women responsible for KPop Demon Hunters’ success (#100), including singers Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami and EJAE, are younger; Judith Faulkner (#53) is the oldest at 82.
- 4 women have appeared every year since inception: Christine Lagarde, Melinda Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Ho Ching
- 2025 list makers include 13 billionaires worth a combined $180.5 billion (up from $163.7 billion in 2024): MacKenzie Scott (#11), Abigail Johnson (#9), Gina Rinehart (#52), Melinda French Gates (#13), Laurene Powell Jobs (#22), Judith Faulkner (#54), Melanie Perkins (#93), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (#83), Oprah Winfrey (#30), Solina Chau Hoi Shuen (#87), Taylor Swift (#21), Kim Kardashian (#71), Lisa Su (#10), Daniela Amodei (#73) and Jayshree Ullal (#64).
For the full list and profiles of the honorees, visit The World’s Most Powerful Women.
About Forbes
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