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MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN BUSINESS
Patient but Not Passive
A new kind of leader emerged in our annual ranking of powerful businesswome=
n. She is strong and resolute, but not in a hurry.=20
Patricia Sellers
Mon Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2001



For some 30 years--ever since women started jockeying for power in the work=
place--patience has gotten a bad rap. After all, the virtue fairly reeks of=
 a Victorian mission to corset women into the role of submissive wife and m=
other. So women have shunned it. Instead they have felt the need to make bo=
ld pronouncements and rush to action. That was never truer than during the =
season of dot-com mania, when every CEO professed to be leading a revolutio=
n. And any leader who failed to act quickly was supposed to get trampled by=
 the capitalist vanguard.=20

Now, in these new, more tempered times, patience may be about to reap its r=
eward. In FORTUNE's annual survey of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business=
, we see the emergence of women who came to power slowly. We're not talking=
 about women who had the patience to suffer indignities or who sat passivel=
y in an out-of-the-way corner. Rather, they stayed with a company, steadily=
 building influence there, and rose to power through determination and insi=
der knowledge, not promises and self-promotion. These qualities, of course,=
 serve men as well as women. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, argues t=
hat the most successful corporate turnarounds were led by such colorless me=
n as Darwin Smith at Kimberly-Clark and William Allen at Boeing. Through a =
combination of deep knowledge of the corporation, personal humility, and wi=
ll, they created enduring greatness. It's too early to say whether Anne Mul=
cahy, No. 6 on our list, can pull off such a feat. But she fits the profile=
. An unpretentious workhorse who never aimed to be CEO, she felt ambivalent=
 accepting the title at troubled Xerox in July. "I'm not as famous as Carly=
--and I want to keep it that way," says Mulcahy, 48.=20

The famous Carly--Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carleton Fiorina--is sti=
ll No. 1 on our list, as she has been every year since we began publishing =
the The Power 50 in 1998. She still heads the biggest company ($48.8 billio=
n in revenues last year) run by a woman. And she is still as audacious and =
impatient as ever. Wall Street practically heckled her latest move--a bold =
bet to buy competitor Compaq--but Fiorina, 47, remains defiant. In difficul=
t times "people who drive change are the subject of great scrutiny," she sa=
ys. As a woman--and a daring, outspoken one at that--her actions are scruti=
nized more closely than the most driven of men. Says Fiorina: "I've had a l=
ot of male CEOs say to me, 'Thank God they don't rank us.' "=20

PepsiCo President and CFO Indra Nooyi (No. 10) understands the urge to take=
 bold action, but she also knows the necessity of holding back. "There is n=
o question that women who reach the top have to perform at a higher level--=
which is why women tend to push themselves harder than men," says Nooyi, 46=
. "But we have to have the right people around who can say to us, 'You're d=
raining the organization. You're pushing too hard.' " Particularly now, as =
the U.S. prepares for an uncertain kind of war and enters what could be a s=
ustained economic downturn, power seems to call for pragmatic and careful l=
eadership.=20

This year's Power 50 is full of such steady leaders. Mulcahy, Nooyi, and th=
e other corporate women who are new to the top ten this year--Mirant's Marc=
e Fuller (No. 5), Pfizer's Karen Katen (No. 7), Chevron's Pat Woertz (No. 8=
), and Kraft's Betsy Holden (No. 9)--are all low-profile loyalists. The com=
bined tenure at their current companies: 118 years. The six years Andrea Ju=
ng (No. 4) spent as head of marketing at Avon gave her the knowledge to rev=
ive the troubled company faster than anyone expected when she became CEO tw=
o years ago (see It Took a Lady to Save Avon).=20

As always, the list is a snapshot of power at a moment in time. Last year, =
power resided in the technology and Internet sectors, but that influence wa=
s fleeting. Gone from the list this year: "Hurricane Debby" Hopkins, who pu=
shed her agenda too ambitiously at Lucent and lost her CFO job in May; Elle=
n Hancock, who failed at the startup Exodus; and Morgan Stanley's Mary Meek=
er, who influenced so many to buy into the Internet fizz. But one Web warri=
or looks better than ever: eBay's Meg Whitman, No. 2 on our list. Whitman, =
who at times took heat for not managing aggressively enough, has never over=
promised investors; instead she has diligently delivered above-target profi=
ts every single quarter.

While the economy and its points of power change, the definition we use to =
evaluate power remains the same. We consider the size and importance of a w=
oman's business in the global economy, her clout inside her company, and th=
e arc of her career--where she has been and where she is likely to go. When=
 appropriate, we also weigh the woman's influence on mass culture and socie=
ty. That factor lifts Oprah Winfrey to No. 3 on this year's list. She owns =
a product, The Oprah Winfrey Show, that generates more than $300 million in=
 annual revenues and reaches 26 million viewers in the U.S. each week--plus=
 millions more in 106 international markets. Her show, and now her magazine=
, O, The Oprah Magazine (whose subject is personal empowerment), have immen=
se influence on the popular culture--from what books people read to what ki=
nd of lives they lead.=20

The shifts on our list this year are dramatic, with 14 newcomers and three =
returnees from previous years. But one trend is especially intriguing: Wome=
n are taking on bigger businesses than ever. A few years ago responsibility=
 for a $3 billion business almost automatically earned a woman a spot on th=
is list. No more. (Unless she wields media power like Martha Stewart, No. 1=
3.) This year's FORTUNE 50 includes several women who lead businesses with =
annual revenues of $20 billion or more. That's a first. The ranking has bec=
ome so competitive, in fact, that some women moved down even though their p=
ower increased. Example: Shelly Lazarus. She heads a healthy business, ad g=
iant Ogilvy & Mather (where, by the way, she has worked for 30 years), whos=
e revenues grew 20% last year. Plus, she added a prestigious board seat--Ge=
neral Electric--to her resume. But in order to make room for newcomers, Laz=
arus slides to No. 11, from No. 7 last year.=20

One newcomer is Southwest Airlines President Colleen Barrett (No. 20). Loya=
lty and self-knowledge took Barrett to corporate heights she never imagined=
 while growing up in tiny Bellows Falls, Vt. Barrett couldn't afford to go =
to a four-year college and had no specific ambition beyond believing she "w=
ould be the best legal secretary in the world," she says. Barrett started a=
s Herb Kelleher's secretary in 1967, a decade before he quit a Texas law pr=
actice to launch Southwest Airlines. She made an indelible mark as the star=
tup grew to be America's top-performing airline. In her job as executive vi=
ce president of customers, she helped create Southwest's famously collegial=
 culture and provided essential structure and discipline to Kelleher's gran=
d vision. "I've never wanted the CEO job," says Barrett. "I don't think I h=
ave the talents for it. I'm a great No. 2 person." Now 57, Barrett is exact=
ly where she wants to be.=20

Loyalty does not mean kowtowing. The women on our list push their companies=
 to change and grow, and they take personal risks. "Women have to take a lo=
t of risks because there is no natural career progression," says Mirant CEO=
 Marce Fuller. She should know. Fuller was getting great marks running inte=
rnational project development for Mirant's former parent, Southern, in 1994=
, when her boss asked her to take charge of the company's tiny North Americ=
an power plant operations. After looking closely at the business, she told =
her boss she didn't want the job unless she could do something altogether n=
ew--build a high-tech risk-management and marketing organization to complem=
ent the expansion of power plants in the U.S. "I told him, 'If you don't ha=
ve this piece, you don't have a game plan,' " she says. It wasn't an easy s=
ell. Only 35 at the time, Fuller lobbied Southern's board for approval. Onc=
e she got it, she built a 600-person energy trading and marketing unit that=
 is expected to generate $25 billion in revenues this year. Southern, a reg=
ulated utility, spun off Mirant last spring. So now Fuller is her own boss-=
-and, with Mirant sure to be among America's largest companies this year, a=
 FORTUNE 500 CEO.=20

One of the few. The grim news is that there are only six women CEOs of FORT=
UNE 500 companies, including Fuller. And there are fewer women in the pipel=
ine than anyone would have thought 30 years ago. "When I was 21, I was expe=
cting that by this point we'd be in the fifty-fifty range," says Betsy Bern=
ard (No. 23), CEO of AT&T Consumer. The reality, though disappointing, has =
motivated Bernard to become "a catalyst, making sure that other women get o=
pportunities." Bernard, 46, and other women emerging now are not based on t=
he old model--the shark-like Linda Wachner, whose company, Warnaco, crashed=
 into bankruptcy this year. Or the flamboyant Jill Barad, who was booted fr=
om Mattel last year. Says PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi: "PepsiCo, which used to be=
 known for hiring 'Pepsi pretty'--blond, blue-eyed males--has made an India=
n woman its president. That says a lot about the future of women." Let's ho=
pe Nooyi is right. Meantime, if you don't see a new Wonder Woman in corpora=
te America, it doesn't mean she doesn't exist. She might be quietly and dil=
igently doing her job.=20

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