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The World's Most Powerful Women

Clinton and Condi make the list but some others will surprise you.

ByABC News
August 27, 2008, 2:14 PM

Aug. 27, 2008— -- Hopeful signs for women: Forbes' fifth annual ranking showcases women who have beat out men for top business posts this year, including Lynn Laverty Elsenhans (No. 39), the new chief of Sunoco; Gail Kelly (No. 11), who heads Australian bank Westpac; and Jane Mendillo (No. 42), who was just named to run the $35 billion Harvard University endowment.

In total, the women ranked on this list control $26 trillion worldwide.

The tenuous state of the world economy, however, has many of the world's most powerful women in the same precarious positions as their male peers. Economic woes this year have already claimed the jobs of Patricia Russo, who headed the troubled Alcatel Lucent, and Zoe Cruz, former president of Morgan Stanley. Other highly placed women could be in jeopardy as well.

Click here to learn more about the world's most powerful women at our partner site, Forbes.com.

But while individual female leaders continue to climb higher, women as a group are making only modest gains. Women have hovered for a decade around 46 percent of the American labor force, but they hold only 15 percent of top corporate jobs; less than 3 percent of the country's biggest companies have female chief executives, according to research nonprofit Catalyst.

The most powerful woman in the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, tops the list for the third year running as the ranking democratically elected female leader. Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the embattled U.S. bank-deposit insurer, debuts in second place as she tries to stave off financial panic amid a worldwide credit crisis.

At No. 3, Indra K. Nooyi of PepsiCo is the highest-ranked woman in business as she expands the food and beverage giant internationally to counter a decline in Americans' preference for soda and chips.

Angela Braly (No. 4), the head of big health insurer WellPoint, suffered a setback this spring when her downward revision of financial forecasts caused a stock tumble, sparking investor and employee ire.