Good morning! Men are threatened by women’s equality, there’s a new IVF lawsuit, and Fortune‘s editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell makes a guest appearance to share why MPW is going global. Enjoy your International Women’s Day this Saturday.
– Going global. Despite the current frosty DEI climate, it’s incredible to step back and think about the overall trajectory of working women over the past few decades.
It wasn’t until 1974 that women in the U.S. won the legal right to open a bank account without a male cosigner. In the late 1990s, when Fortune first created our Most Powerful Women in Business ranking, women were just beginning to occupy C-suite roles. Now nearly 12% of all Fortune 500 companies are run by female CEOs. That’s nowhere near parity, but it is certainly progress.
(We don’t track women-led companies as a moral obligation, by the way. We track it because diversity of background and thought, particularly within leadership ranks, has been shown over and over again to generate stronger financial performance. Merit-based diversity is, in fact, better for business.)
Today, in another part of the world, Saudi women are experiencing their own boom. Saudi Arabia has historically been a restrictive and even suppressive place for women, but recently it has taken a progressive turn. On the heels of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan, announced in 2016, women finally earned rights that women in the U.S. take for granted. In 2017, Saudi women earned the right to drive, and since then the share of women who work has soared, now exceeding 34%. Increasingly, Saudi women are becoming entrepreneurs and contributing meaningfully to the economy.
Saudi Arabia’s overall impact on the global economy has progressed rapidly too. In 2022, it was the fastest-growing economy among G20 countries, and it has planned to invest about $3.2 trillion by 2030 to diversify beyond oil. (Investment in the U.S. is on the table, too; following President Trump’s return to office, Saudi state media said the kingdom would invest $600 billion in American businesses over the next four years.) Saudi Aramco, the energy company tied to the Saudi government, has been the most profitable business in the world over the past decade.
At Fortune, the purpose of our journalism is to make business better and to serve as a powerful, authoritative voice pressing for progress. Given Saudi Arabia’s recent acceleration, particularly for women, we are excited to get closer to the action and document the progress there too.
In May, our Most Powerful Women Summit will host its first-ever event in Riyadh. The goal is to acknowledge the growing power of women in Saudi Arabia, and to bring seasoned women executives from elsewhere in the world to support their ascent.
If you believe, as Fortune does, that convening the most powerful women in the world globally is essential to creating positive change for business, please consider yourself invited to the Fortune Most Powerful Women International Summit in Riyadh. We are building our speaker lineup and attendee list now. To be considered for either, or if you’d like to help take MPW global with us, please get in touch at mostpowerfulwomen@fortune.com.
Alyson Shontell
Editor-in-Chief, Fortune
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Joey Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Word on the street. Sesame Workshop, the organization behind Sesame Street that’s led by CEO Sherrie Westin, will conduct “significant” layoffs. Employees had recently unionized, and Max announced it won’t renew its deal to distribute episodes of the children’s show. Guardian
- Dollars over discourse. A majority of the men who responded to a new global study say that their countries had “gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men.” A different study out of Bank of America this week, however, argued that as women amass more of the wealth in the U.S., they’ll help create economic opportunities for everyone. Fortune
- In mural memoriam. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has signaled that she will remove the Black Lives Matter mural from the city’s downtown area after pressure from the same president with whom she feuded with when constructing the mural in 2020. Bowser, who says her main priority is the economic health of the city, said in a statement that there are “bigger fish to fry than fights over what has been very important to us and to their history.” New York Times
- IVF test under the microscope. A group of women are suing the providers of a test that some estimate is used in half of IVF cycles across the U.S. for inaccurately determining the health of their embryos. One plaintiff claims the procedure, called preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, cost thousands and described five of the embryos she tested as abnormal, one of which later gave her a seemingly healthy son. Four of the six clinics being sued are trying to have the suit dismissed, while another is trying to resolve before going to trial. Time
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Sleep Number named Linda Findley as president and CEO, effective April 7. Findley previously served as president and CEO of Blue Apron.
BrightSpring Health (No. 436 on the Fortune 500) promoted Jennifer Phipps to CFO, effective March 4. Phipps currently serves as chief accounting officer, principal accounting officer, CFO of BrightSpring’s Home Health and Hospice segment and SVP of treasury, risk, tax, real estate, and procurement.
Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.
ON MY RADAR
The making of Sarah Burton’s Givenchy Vogue
Like Meghan Markle, 80% of women take their husband’s name after marriage. But experts warn it’s a big gamble Fortune
This brand wants to make you sporty, rich—and now, sexy Wall Street Journal
PARTING WORDS
“It let people in the industry know that we’re here, we mean business, and we want to set the bar high.”
— Robbie Brenner, president of Mattel Films, on how she’s using the success of 2023’s Barbie to create a cinematic universe of Mattel characters