Oprah off Fortunes most powerful women list

MUMBAI: When Fortune published its first Most Powerful Women (WPM) in Business list in 1998, it included just two Fortune 500 CEOs.

The 2013 Fortune MPW list includes 20 Fortune 500 CEOs. At the top is Ginni Rometty of IBM.

Fifteen years ago, most of the Fortune MPW we’re in the consumer packaged goods and media industries. The 2013 list features consumer-products stars–PepsiCo (PEP) chief Indra Nooyi, Mondelez (MDLZ) CEO Irene Rosenfeld and Procter & Gamble’s (PG) Mel Healey and Deb Henretta. But women in tech dominate the new rankings. The 2013 top 10 includes five tech execs: Rometty, Facebook’s (FB) Sheryl Sandberg (No. 5), Yahoo (YHOO) chief Marissa Mayer (No. 8) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) boss Meg Whitman (No. 9).

There are lots of moms on the 2013 MPW list as well. And in general, Fortune’s MPW are getting older. Average age: 53, vs. 48 in 1998.

And for the first time ever, one woman who has always made Fortune’s MPW list dropped off, Oprah Winfrey. Her cable network, OWN, seems to have overcome its startup struggles and is drawing bigger audiences, but the business isn’t big enough to put Oprah on the 2013 list.