The concept of power can be nebulous — especially when it comes to gender. As of January 2015, 10 women served as heads of state and 14 as heads of government. Women currently hold 23 (4.6%) of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies. Of a total 1,826 global billionaires, 197 are women — 11% of the total. Only 9% of executive officers in Silicon Valley are women.

That these wretched stats continue year after year is a serious and pressing issue. But there’s hardly a void of powerful women – and the numbers are growing. That is, if we enlarge our focus from only those who possess the greatest wealth or the heaviest corporate hammer to include the women whose influence and impact may be greater than the sum of their titles.

The headlines remind us whenever another woman gets the top job. Examples: GM’s Mary Barra, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, IMF head Christine Lagarde. But the fact that a great many of the women on this list are not the pointy head of the pyramid — such as Facebook’s Sandberg, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala or Gwynne Shotwell, COO of SpaceX and Apple’s Angela Ahrendts — doesn’t dim their enormous clout. They appear on this list because they illustrate a new math– it turns out you don’t need to be No. 1 to be a Most Powerful.

Here, a quick peek at Power Women 2015:

Newcomers: Nineteen are new to the list in 2015. Ana Patricia Botin, the new chair of Banco Santander and the most powerful woman in finance, makes a strong first showing at No. 18. Other names to know: Google CFO Ruth Porat, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Taylor Swift, top venture capitalist Jenny Lee of GGV Capital.

Hall of Fame: Seven women who appeared on the inaugural list in 2004 are still here today: Melinda Gates, Christine Lagarde, Hillary Clinton and Indra Nooyi. Also, of course,  Oprah

The concept of power can be nebulous — especially when it comes to gender. As of January 2015, 10 women served as heads of state and 14 as heads of government. Women currently hold 23 (4.6%) of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies. Of a total 1,826 global billionaires, 197 are women — 11% of the total. Only 9% of executive officers in Silicon Valley are women.

That these wretched stats continue year after year is a serious and pressing issue. But there’s hardly a void of powerful women – and the numbers are growing. That is, if we enlarge our focus from only those who possess the greatest wealth or the heaviest corporate hammer to include the women whose influence and impact may be greater than the sum of their titles.

The headlines remind us whenever another woman gets the top job. Examples: GM’s Mary Barra, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, IMF head Christine Lagarde. But the fact that a great many of the women on this list are not the pointy head of the pyramid — such as Facebook’s Sandberg, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala or Gwynne Shotwell, COO of SpaceX and Apple’s Angela Ahrendts — doesn’t dim their enormous clout. They appear on this list because they illustrate a new math– it turns out you don’t need to be No. 1 to be a Most Powerful.

Here, a quick peek at Power Women 2015:

Newcomers: Nineteen are new to the list in 2015. Ana Patricia Botin, the new chair of Banco Santander and the most powerful woman in finance, makes a strong first showing at No. 18. Other names to know: Google CFO Ruth Porat, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Taylor Swift, top venture capitalist Jenny Lee of GGV Capital.

Hall of Fame: Seven women who appeared on the inaugural list in 2004 are still here today: Melinda Gates, Christine Lagarde, Hillary Clinton and Indra Nooyi. Also, of course,  Oprah Winfrey,  Queen Elizabeth II, and Ho Ching.

She’s No. 1:  Chancellor Merkel has made the list ten times over the past 12 years — nine times as No. 1. She was first elected in 2005 and won a historic third term in 2013.

She’s the first: Nearly half the women featured here are “female firsts,” such as GM’s Barra, the most world’s most powerful businesswoman, and Fed Chair Janet Yellen, the top global state banker. Drew Gilpin Faust is the first female president of Harvard, and Folorunsho Alakija is the first self-made African billionaire. Rep.Nancy Pelosi was the first-ever to wield the U.S. House Speaker’s hammer, and Sarah Blakely was the first female self-made billionaire to sign The Giving Pledge, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s bid to encourage the world’s richest to give at least half their wealth to charity. And then there’s Hillary Clinton. Her CV is chock full of firsts: The only first lady to become a U.S. senator turned secretary of state turned presidential candidate x 2. Now a 2016 candidate, bets are on that she may be the first woman elected to the Oval Office.

The rising tide of female entrepreneurs: A remarkable number of women are founders or owners of their own enterprises, not a few of whose eponymous companies are synonymous with high fashion. Consider Miuccia Prada, Tory Burch and Diane von Furstenberg. Other self-made self-starters include Winfrey, Alibaba’s cofounder Lucy Peng, billionaire founder-CEO Elizabeth Holmes, the richest woman in Africa Folorunsho Alakija, Chinese real estate tycoon Zhang Xin, and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, India’s first biotech entrepreneur.

Geographic diversity: More than half of the women (59) on the list are American, including immigrants such as von Furstenberg (Belgium), Power (Ireland), Weili Dai (China) and Warrior (India). Asia-Pacific citizens make the second strongest showing at 18. Latin America and the Middle East have four regionals on the list, and there are 12 Europeans and three Africans with a slot.

STEM degrees pay off: On this year’s list, along with the expected M.B.A.s and law degrees, there are a healthy dose of women who earned degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. Five are medical doctors, including Polish President Ewa Kopacz, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization. More unexpected STEM degree-holders include Merkel (Ph.D. in chemistry), Dupont CEO Ellen Kullman (mechanical engineering), Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi (computer science) and Judith Faulkner (mathematics).

The new celebrity role models: Sure, they’re famous but they deserve special attention outside their day job. Oprah founded both Harpo Productions and The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Joining the efforts of the U.N. are Angelina Jolie, Shakira and Yao Chen, the Refugee Agency’s Goodwill Ambassador in China. Taylor Swift, new this year, donated five figures to the New York City Department of Education from sales of “Welcome to New York,” and promises to continue to give as long as the song sells. Entertainers making a mint as entrepreneurs include Beyonce and Sofia Vergara.

Notable drop-offs: The surge in newcomers means 19 women are off the list from last year, among them Margaret Hamburg, Amy Pascal, Maria as Gracas Silva Foster, Gail Kelly, Helene Gayle, Patricia Woertz and Joyce Banda all out of their former jobs. Celebrities Lady Gaga and Gisele Bundchen are gone, having fallen in influence/impact below the 100 line. The same is true for Chua Sock Koong, Sun Yafang, Jennifer Li, Hu Shuli and Fatima Al Jaber.

See Full Coverage of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women

credit link:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2015/05/26/the-worlds-most-powerful-women-2015/