Each year, Forbes makes the top of the Most Powerful Women in the world, including CEOs that control companies, singers, TV starts, actresses and many more. 2015 brought a new number 1 on the list, in the person of Mary Barra, the chief executive officer of General Motoros.
Mary Barra‘s venture with GM began in 1980, when she was just 18 years old. Until 2008, she had occupied a variety of engineering and administrative positions such as plant manager. Finally, she was promoted as the VP of Global Manufacturing Engineering.
Hard work and dedication pays off
As stated by ABC News, Marry Barra declared: “When I started here 33 years ago, I had no idea this is the role I would be playing but I approached every position like I was going to do it for the rest of my life so I think that’s a very strong message that hard work pays off”.
Her position in the top comes as a surprise for a lot of people, since 2015 was her first year as GM’s CEO. In 2014, the company went through a lot of issues, due to millions of recalls, which had some huge costs. After this was solved, Mary Barra predicted a big growth for the second half of 2015.
Barra is present in Fortune’s top since 2012, when she was the 27th, while last year she was named the Most Powerful Woman in Business and scored 9th in the overall top.
Pepsi and IBM are in Top 3
The podium is completed by PepsiCO’s CEO and Chairman, Indra Nooyi, while Ginni Rometty, IBM’s CEO, made it to the third position.
Besides Mary Barra, his year’s Fortune list also includes important names from the technology sector, like Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, number 8 on the list, considered one of the most influential people in the world, by TIME magazine.
