Fortune Most Powerful Women International Summit opens in Riyadh

The advancement of women has been a key part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan since it launched nine years ago. In that time, women’s labor force participation rate has doubled as the kingdom has expanded job opportunities, banned sexual discrimination, expanded paid maternity leave and made it possible for women to drive, travel more freely, and take on bigger leadership roles.

Hala al-Tuwaijri, who heads the Saudi Human Rights Commission and will speak with me today, points to more than 50 reforms in women’s rights since 2016. Saudi Arabia has gone from being ranked 141^st out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index to 126^th last year. There’s progress and more to do, making this a great place to convene women leading transformational change in Saudi Arabia and beyond.

This morning, we also published the 2025 edition of the Fortune Most Powerful Women in business list. MPW editor Emma Hinchliffe notes in the opening essay that we changed the scoring system for the list, which first published in 1998, to reflect an executive’s influence, innovation, career trajectory and impact, along with key business metrics that are the foundation of this list. Tune in to our livestream to see Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell interview Julie Sweet, who’s chair and CEO of Accenture and #2 on this year’s list. Emma, Ellie Austin, Michal Lev-Ram will also interview newsmakers there.

I’m excited to kick off with Lubna Olayan, who joined her father’s company in Saudi Arabia in 1984, and built Olayan Financing Company into a powerhouse that put her on our MPW list 12 times. In June 2016, just weeks after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Vision 2030, Olayan came to our MPW summit in London and predicted that women’s right to drive would be coming very soon. She was right. Now chairing Saudi Awwal Bank and investing in the next generation of business, I can’t wait to learn what she sees coming next.

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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The markets

• The S&P 500 closed up 0.09% at 5,963.60 Monday ... U.S. futures contracts were moving down marginally pre-opening bell... Japan and Europe are broadly up this morning, save for a drop in India'sNifty 50 and a CATL-boosted jump in Hong Kong... UnitedHealth Group clawed back another 3% premarket; it's now recovered all it lost after the Wall Street Journal reported it faced a DOJ probe into possible Medicare fraud.

From the analysts 

• Oxford Economics on Moody's downgrade: "This downgrade will increase the uncertainty about the upcoming fiscal package and put upward pressure on long-term rates while boosting bond market volatility… A focus on fiscal sustainability will remain important. If we assume this is the highest politically feasible surplus the nation can muster to stabilize the debt trajectory, then the US would run out of fiscal space in the latter half of the 2050s, at which point the debt-to-GDP ratio will exceed 220%,” per Ryan Sweet.
• Convera on the U.S. dollar and Moody's: “The Moody’s downgrade highlights long-term risks, including debt sustainability, which could further erode the dollar’s haven appeal… Markets are reacting swiftly – equity futures dropped over 1%, and long-dated Treasury yields approached 5%, reflecting growing Wall Street worries over the US bond market… Debt concerns now drive volatility across US markets,” per George Vessey.
• Pantheon on the 'big, beautiful bill': "The bill is regressive, taking money away from low-income households, chiefly by scaling back benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from October 2025 and restricting access to Medicaid from 2028. Those cuts pay for some of the cost of rolling over all the income tax cuts signed off in 2017 and increasing the SALT cap to $30K, from $10K, which benefits high-income households most," per Samuel Tombs et al.

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

This Moderna leader uses AI to resolve conflict on the executive team—all before it even happens by Sara Braun

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Circle pursues IPO—but talks with Coinbase and Ripple could mean a sale, sources say by Luisa Beltran

‘Addictive’ tariffs are here to stay, warns Wharton professor, even if Democrats win the next election by Eleanor Pringle

Legal expert Kenji Yoshino shares the red flags to look out for as Trump’s DEI deadline looms by Brit Morse

CEO Daily was compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Ian Mount.