Beyonce
Age: 33
Who runs the entertainment world? Beyonce with a little help from her husband and music mogul Jay Z. When she dropped her self-titled album in December 2013, there was zero publicity involved. Yet, it ended up selling more than a million copies. Her last summer’s ‘On The Run’ tour with hubby pulled in nearly $100 million. And next up is a rumoured duet album with who else but J. And to prove she is truly Queen Bey, she didn’t give Vogue an interview to fill up a few of the 832 pages of its vaunted September issue even though she is on the cover and inside is a photo shoot and an essay by Pulitzer-winning Margo Jefferson. Why the silence? We can only quote what she had told GQ in 2013: “I’m more powerful than my mind can even digest and understand.”
Indra Nooyi
Age: 59
“My batch was of around 100 students, and I was one amongst the five or six women in my class and just 12 in the whole school. They couldn’t take more because there were only so many dorm rooms built for women. We talk about glass ceilings today, but back then, women were still limited by the number of walls,” the PepsiCo chairman and CEO said while delivering the 50th convocation address at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in April. It’s not easy being the boss of a major that manufactures fizzy drinks and chips but her long-term vision has won her all-round praise. And though she doesn’t think women can have it all, Nooyi has managed to strike a work-life balance. “Every day you have to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact many times during the day you have to make those decisions,” she said last year at Aspen Ideas Festival.
Sheryl Sandberg
Age: 45
Mark Zuckerberg is the face of Facebook but Sheryl Sandberg is its lifeline and COO. Her personal wealth ($1.1billion and counting, it is said) disqualifies her from being a regular woman even though she was born to parents who spent their lives speaking up “for political prisoners in the Soviet Union and victims of religious persecution”. Joining FB in 2008 wasn’t an easy decision because at Google she was already working on the lucrative online advertising programmes AdWords and AdSense. And once there, she fearlessly tackled the toughest question at staff meetings in Menlo Park –– “Could Facebook make money, ever?” Read her book Lean In which examines why it’s tough for women to achieve leadership roles.
Taylor Swift
Age: 25
Dwindling record sales don’t affect this country-turned-pop princess. She can fill arenas. She can turn in one best-selling album after another. She can shout out to her 62.4 million Twitter legion. She can slay a music streaming giant like Spotify, which FYI has 75 million-plus users. She can make Apple (with a cash mountain of $194 billion) do a score 10 backflip after it denied payments to artistes in the free three-month trial period when Apple Music was launched. Minor hiccups apart –– like the unnecessary Twitter feud with Nicki Minaj — whatever she says is like (quoting legendary lyricist Elvis Costello) “a word from our future president”! A “president” with famous friends in her pockets — Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, HAIM sisters — and a boyfriend (Calvin Harris) sunnier than his hit song Summer.
Hillary Clinton
Age: 67
The woman in Nina McLemore suits is a Democratic front-runner in the 2016 US presidential race. And she has unfinished business to take care of. Conceding the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, she described the presidency in her 2008 speech as the “highest, hardest glass ceiling”, one which had “about 18 million cracks”. It was enough to make her come across as more than just a former first lady (1993-2001) who stood by hubby Bill through the Monica Lewinsky scandal. After a bit of persuasion from Obama, she became Madam Secretary of State in 2009 (till 2013) and one of the president’s closest advisers when Arab Spring flared and when Mission Osama bin Laden happened. If America gives the thumbs-up, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton will become the 45th president of the United States.
Angelina Jolie
Age: 40
Her early public life was the stuff for tabloids –– kissing her brother James Haven on the red carpet at the 2000 Oscars; she and her then-husband Billy Bob Thornton wearing vials of each other’s blood around their necks…. Today, she is a role model for millions. Filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in Cambodia in 2001 opened her eyes to the plight of refugees. She went on to become a UNHCR goodwill ambassador, focusing on the lives of refugees and women’s rights. Her June 11 speech at the biannual African Union Summit still rings loud. “We need policies for long-term security that are designed by women, focused on women, executed by women — not at the expense of men, or instead of men, but alongside and with men,” she had said. And, of course, her decision to have a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 made her a superwoman for many. And, she has Brad Pitt on her arm.
Oprah Winfrey
Age: 61
The Godmother of Confessional Club believes she was brought to earth to help people “live their best life”. On her eponymous Oprah Winfrey Show (went off air in 2011), she has inspired Tom Cruise to jump on the sofa while declaring his love for Katie Holmes, made Michael Jackson confess, “I just simply want to be loved, wherever I go”.... And who can forget her interview (on Oprah’s OWN TV channel) with fallen-from-grace cyclist Lance Armstrong where he admitted using performance-enhancing drugs. Oprahfication has brought her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a number of Emmy Awards. Her influence on pop culture remains unparalleled, even if one skips her acting career (The Color Purple, The Butler, Selma).
Caitlyn Jenner
Age: 65
He climbed into a cream-coloured corset for Vanity Fair’s June 2015 issue to be introduced with three simple words: “Call me Caitlyn.” The gold medal-winning Olympian Bruce Jenner had metamorphosed into a woman and become a role model for trans women. “Bruce always had to tell a lie. He was always living that lie every day, he always had a secret from morning ’til night. Caitlyn doesn’t have any secrets,” she has said in a video. And along came her reality TV show I Am Cait, which goes beyond the vapid elements of Keeping up with the Kardashians. The he-to-she movement has already come with a warning from step-daughter Kim K on the show: “You look amazing. It’s your time but you don’t have to bash us on your way up.”
LET’S NOT FORGET
Jennifer Lawrence: She is Hollywood’s sweetheart. The Oscar winner has reportedly taken home $52million in earnings till June, mostly thanks to her kickass portrayal of Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games. And she put on a brave face when the nude photo-hacking scandal hit the web in 2014.
Malala Yousafzai: The youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls’ education. A shero to so many.
Gloria Steinem: The 81-year-old feminist icon had come to The Telegraph office last year and told us: “At home we not only say feminism but say ‘women’s liberation’, ‘womanism’ that African-American women often say, ‘Mujerista’ which is Spanish-speaking, ‘girrrls’ which I love. But it isn’t a public relations movement. It’s a revolution. So whatever word you use will be opposed by the same people.”
Who is the most powerful she celeb in the world? Tell t2@abp.in
