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MPWMost Powerful Women

These 8 Execs Dropped Off the 2017 Most Powerful Women List

By
Beth Kowitt
Beth Kowitt
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By
Beth Kowitt
Beth Kowitt
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September 21, 2017, 7:30 AM ET

Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women list is missing some familiar faces this year.

Xerox’s Ursula Burns and Mondelez’s Irene Rosenfeld both appeared on our ranking more than a dozen times over the years, regularly breaking into the top 10.

But both are absent from this year’s rankings. Burns retired from Xerox in January and Rosenfeld will do the same at Mondelez in November. The two executives are among the eight who fell off of our 2017 list.

Another longtime CEO, Susan Cameron from Reynolds American, also dropped off our ranking after announcing her retirement in October. However, her successor, Debra Crew, remains on the list—and moved up as a result of Cameron’s departure. (The transition was the first female-to-female CEO handoff since 2012.)

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Rosalind Brewerstepped down as CEO from Walmart’s Sam’s Club in January, and in turn fell off the list. But she earned an MPW “On Our Radar” slot thanks to her new gig: chief operating officer of Starbucks, a role she begins on October 2.

Intel’s Diane Bryant, one of the company’s highest-profile executives, disappeared from our ranking after taking a leave of absence in May. The company has said her new role will be announced later this year.

Rounding out our departing MPWs were three executives—GE’s Beth Comstock, Verizon’s Marni Walden, and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser— who ran smaller divisions and fell off the list to make room for new CEOs and women running larger businesses.

2016 Rank and Title of this Year’s MPW List Drop-Offs

  • No. 9 – Irene Rosenfeld, CEO and Chairman, Mondelez (MDLZ)
  • No. 19 – Rosalind Brewer, CEO and President, Sam’s Club, Walmart (WMT)
  • No. 21 – Susan Cameron, CEO and President, Reynolds American
  • No. 25 – Ursula Burns, CEO and Chairman, Xerox (XRX)
  • No. 40 – Marni Walden, EVP/President, Product Innovation and New Businesses, Verizon Communications (VZA)
  • No. 44 – Diane Bryant, EVP and GM, Data Center Group, Intel (INTC)
  • No. 46 – Jane Fraser, CEO, Latin America, Citigroup (C)
  • No. 48 – Beth Comstock, Vice Chair, General Electric (GE)

See our full list of the 2017 Fortune Most Powerful Women in business here.

About the Author
By Beth Kowitt
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