Serpil Timuray

Promoted last year to oversee the telecom giant’s key markets of Africa, Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific (AMAP), Timuray has lived up to the board’s expectations; her division delivered a standout performance in 2014, with $21 billion in sales, up 7% in 2014, which helped offset declining sales in Europe. The former P&G marketing exec has expanded her hugely successful “Farmers’ Club Initiative”—a social business model to help boost farmers’ productivity with mobile services like virtual marketplaces—to emerging countries. Food conglomerate Danone recently appointed Timuray as an independent director. —Rupali Arora