Okonjo Iweala, Mo Abudu and President Hassan Make Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women List

Okonjo Iweala, Mo Abudu and President Hassan Make Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women List

Forbes has released its 18^th annual list of power women and three African women were featured on the list. They are the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Founder of EbonyLife Place, Mo Abudu; and President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan. 

Forbes Most Powerful Women list includes 40 CEOs, 19 world leaders, an immunologist and, for the first time in more than a decade, a new number one. Nothing illustrates the dynamics of this list better than the change at the very top. While the women on this list come from 30 countries and territories and work across finance, technology, politics, philanthropy, entertainment and more, Forbes says they are all united by a sense of duty.

This year, the number one honour goes to billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the third richest woman in the world; number two, the US Vice President Kamala Harris, and third; Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank. 

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who became the first woman to lead the WTO was ranked 91 while President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Mo Abudu were ranked 94 and 98 respectively on the list. Okonjo-Iweala and President Hassan were included under the Politics and Policy category while Mo Abudu secured a spot in the Media and Entertainment category. More about them below:

Ngozi-Okonjo Iweala

An economist and international development professional, Okonjo-Iweala has over 30 years of experience working in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. In March 2021, she became the first woman and first African to serve as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. Okonjo-Iweala believes in the power of trade to lift developing countries out of poverty and help them achieve sustainable development. Earlier in her career, she served two terms as Nigeria’s Finance Minister from 2003-2006 and 2011-2015. She also briefly acted as Foreign Minister in 2006 and was Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance that has immunized 760 million children globally.

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Samia Suluhu Hassan

Samia Suluhu Hassan became Tanzania’s sixth president and first-ever female leader in March 2021. She rose to the position from Vice-President, a role to which she was first elected in 2015. In September, she became just the fifth-ever female African leader to address the U.N General Assembly, where she used her remarks to criticize Covid vaccine inequality. Samia Suluhu Hassan has differentiated her leadership from her predecessor by implementing stricter Covid protocols, including mandatory quarantines for travellers coming from countries with new variants. 

Mo Abudu

According to Forbes, Mo Abudu is one of the most powerful women in global media. In 2006, she started EbonyLife TV, a network that now airs in more than 49 countries across Africa, as well as in the UK and the Caribbean. Over the years, EbonyLife TV has struck major partnership deals with Sony Pictures Television, AMC Networks and Netflix. EbonyLife’s deal with Netflix marked the first time an African media company signed a multi-title film and TV agreement with the streamer.