These Powerful Women Running World's Biggest Companies

Chennai: Women make up only 5 percent of the CEOs in S&P 500 companies, Standard & Poor’s stock market index based on the market capitalization of 500 leading companies. The number is growing up, and hit a record 20 when Marissa Mayer took the helm at Yahoo last year. Here is the list of 5 women CEO who are heading biggest tech companies as compiled CNBC.

Virginia Rometty

Company: IBM

The current Chairwoman and CEO of IBM, Virginia Rometty is the first woman to head the company. She has been recognized in Fortune Magazine’s ‘50 Most Powerful Women in Business’ for eight consecutive years. There’s more to it; Rometty was ranked 15th on Forbes Magazine’s ‘World’s 100 Most Powerful Women,’ and also made it to the ‘Time 100’ in 2012. Rometty’s name was included in the 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets magazine in September 2012.

Indra Nooyi

Company: PepsiCo

Indian-American business executive, Indra Nooyi is the current chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo, the second biggest food and beverage business in the world by revenue. Nooyi joined PepsiCo in the year 1994 and in 2001 she bagged the President and CFO title. Nooyi is one dominating name in the list of World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, according to Forbes and has been ranked 10th in the same list last year.

Irene Rosenfeld

Company: Mondelez International

The current Chairman and CEO of Mondel?z International, Irene Blecker Rosenfeld has been involved in the food and beverage industry for almost 30 years. In 2008, Rosenfeld grabbed the sixth position on The Wall Street Journal’s list of “50 Women to Watch.” Even Forbes placed her 2nd on the top 10 Most Powerful Women in 2010 and 10th in 2011. However, in 2010, she earned $19.288 million dollar as total compensation, placing her 48th on the Forbes Executive Pay.

Ellen Kullman

Company: DuPont

The former director of General Motors, Ellen J. Kullman is a President, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of DuPont. In 2011, Forbes ranked Kullman 4th of the 100 Most Powerful Women. The company’s 206 year of history, Kullman is the nineteenth executive and the first women to lead the company. She was elected President and a director of DuPont by the board of directors with effect from 1st October 2008 and CEO from 1st January 2009. In 2008, Kullman was placed fifteenth in Fortune Magazine’s list of the World’s Fifty Most Powerful Women.

Ursula Burns

Company: Xerox

Ursula M. Burns serves as Madam Chairman and CEO of Xerox. In 2009, she became the first African-American woman CEO to head a Fortune 500 company. That was 29 years after she joined Xerox as an intern in mechanical engineering. She is also the first woman to succeed another woman as head of a Fortune 500 company. In 2009, Forbes rated her as the 14th most powerful woman in the world. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Burns vice chairwoman of the President’s Export Council.