One and only one Filipina made it to Fortune Magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women in the World.
In the 50 most powerful women in the world, one Filipina has again landed on the list, Mrs. Teresita Sy Coson, is no. 41 in the list of 50.
Sy-Coson is listed as the 56-year-old vice chair of SM Investments, the Sy family’s holding company that is deep into the mall business, real estate, and of late banking. Tessie Sy Coson is credited with brokering one of the largest banking deals in recent history (that’s of course Banco de Oro). She is also largely credited with the holding company’s skyrocketing sales year, hitting an increase of 68 percent for this period. Sales for 2006 hit a record high of $1.7 billion, enough to merit Ms. Sy-Coson a berth in the prestigious global list of the world’s most powerful women.
Incidentally, Tessie also landed in the list last year, the only Filipina to have done so. Going through the list again this year, it seems Tessie still holds on to the distinction of still being the only one from the Philippines to make the list.
Even the legendary Oprah Winfrey, the first Afro-American to land in the billionaires’ list, did not make it to the global list. She instead made it to the top 50 Most Powerful Women in the United States, landing no. 8, as the chairman and CEO of Harpo Production, which of course is top-billed by her own daily syndicated show, and her magazine which carries her name. Did you know that in all the years that the Oprah Magazine has hit the stands, she has had no other woman grace the cover of her magazine except herself? Talk about constant re-inventing of one’s self, and the creativity of the magazine staff, to be able to carry this off week after week, and still sell profitably. In fact, last year, ad sales even went up by 14 percent. Or maybe, it’s just the magic that is in the name of Oprah. They do not need any body else’s glitz and glamor, and perfect beauty, to sell the magazine.
Browsing through the global list is an affirmation of the dizzying heights that women power has managed to scale in an erstwhile male dominion. Topping the list is the CEO of Anglo American, the world’s biggest mining company. Cynthia Carroll, only 50 years of age, has managed to edge out all the aspiring men in her mining company, traditionally a man’s world. The second most powerful woman in business, Anne Lauvergeon, only 48, is the executive chairperson of AREVA, a nuclear company, that she has helped steer to highly profitable margins. Marjorie Pearson, at 60 the oldest in the list, is the CEO of Pearson (Financial Times, among others in its portfolio). No. 4 is the CEO of Alcatel, a leader in the telecom industry, Patricia Russo, 55 and rounding off the top five in the list is Linda Cook, at 49 the executive director for Gas and Power of the second largest energy company in the world, the Royal Dutch Shell. She is the highest ranking woman in the company, a company once male-dominated like most of the other energy leaders in the world.
In the US list, the CEOs of PepsiCo (of Indian descent), Xerox, Ebay, Wellpoint (a health care company), Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Harpo Production, Avon Products and Sara Lee top bill the short list. All of these companies are very familiar to us, most of them maintaining a high profile presence in the country like Procter and Gamble, Pepsi Cola, Kraft and Xerox, although the latter has had a waning presence here. Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox, is credited with turning the company around to register profitably, so maybe we can expect a stronger, renewed presence here of Xerox as well. The other interesting member of the list is Meg Whitman, CEO and president of EBay, now a $6-billion company. Filipinos now enjoy hunting for bargains in the EBay, and it is fast becoming popular locally.
