Güler Sabancı

Sabancı is steering her family’s $17.6 billion business through especially challenging and uncertain times in Turkey. The conglomerate, with a group of companies spanning the financial, industrial, retail and energy sectors, is the one of the largest in a country beset by terrorist attacks, the region’s refugee crisis and a failed coup this year. Even so, the holding company has some momentum: its fast-growing power business (half of which comes from renewable sources) helped revenues and profits climb a respective 9% and 8% in local currency in 2015. Sabancı, who founded a university in her family’s name in 1994, remains an active philanthropist and advocate for women’s development in her country and around the world.

For more on Güler Sabancı, read "Leading in Times of Chaos."