By Patricia Sellers
The 2010 Fortune Most Powerful Women list is out!
You can check out the entire MPWomen package here.
This includes the full ranking of 50 MPWomen in U.S. Business, our D.C. Power List and more.
PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is No. 1 on our U.S. list for the fifth year in a row. Kraft Foods’ Irene Rosenfeld is right behind her, at No. 2.
I went on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning to unveil the rankings and noted that beyond these two powerful women execs, there’s a pattern here: The consumer packaged-goods industry is welcoming to top-level women. Perfect evidence: the news, just out, that Denise Morrison is set to become CEO of Campbell Soup .
Campbell announced yesterday that Morrison, currently an SVP who runs a $5 billion piece of the company, will be EVP and COO, effective this Friday. She’s a virtual shoo-in to succeed CEO Doug Conant when he retires next July. And already looking ahead to the 2011 Fortune MPWomen list, I envision that when Morrison makes the cut, we will have our first sister act. Morrison’s sister is Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter, who jumped to No. 40, from 50th place, in this year’s rankings.
The list criteria, in case you’re wondering, is four-fold: the size and importance of the woman’s business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman’s career, and social and cultural influence — which puts Oprah Winfrey (No. 6) high on the list. (Watch for my exclusive cover story on Oprah, online tomorrow.)
How did Wilderotter make the leap up the list this year? She pulled off an $8.6 billion acquisition of Verizon assets that she had been eyeing for years. That deal makes Frontier the largest rural communications company in the U.S.
