Mary Barra

In her 10th year on the job, Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, has led the company to its strongest financial position in decades, reforming its culture and reorganizing its product lines to prepare for an electric-vehicle revolution. Those achievements notched her the No. 1 spot on Fortune's 2024 Most Powerful Women in business list. That doesn't mean there haven't been challenges. The company says it is on track to sell 200,000 EVs in North America in 2024; it had previously stated a goal of getting to a production capacity of 1 million EVs annually by 2025. Still, under Barra, GM managed to bring in $171.8 billion in its last fiscal year, a nearly 10% increase year over year. In late 2023 Barra also navigated GM through contentious negotiations with the United Auto Workers, reaching an agreement and ending a costly strike. Having hit her 10-year mark, the CEO joins an exclusive group of leaders: The average tenure of a Fortune 500 CEO is 7.2 years for men and just 4.5 years for women.