Ivanka Trump makes Forbes list of top powerful women
Chancellor Merkel, PM May lead annual rating • Jewish personality YouTube CEO Wojcicki ranks No. 7
As women continue to break glass ceilings as they ascend to leadership roles, Jewish women lead the pack. Forbes magazine’s list of this year’s most powerful women includes Ivanka Trump and many other female Jewish visionaries, leaders and moguls.
Ivanka, US President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser, was ranked at No. 24 on the list. After meeting her husband, Jared Kushner, who is Modern Orthodox, Ivanka converted and went on to become the first Jewish member of an American first family.
Despite her vast reach and influence as an adviser, five Jewish women rank even higher than Trump.
The highest scorer on the Forbes list is Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube. Her mother, Esther Wojcicki, was raised in an Orthodox home by Russian immigrant parents, according to Forbes. Susan Wojcicki helped found Google. It was in Wojcicki’s garage where Larry Page and Sergey Brin began work on the start-up.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s CEO, was just shy of breaking the top 10. Last year, Sandberg announced she would work harder with Facebook to correct failures of antisemitic advertisements on the platform.
At No. 19 are the US Supreme Court’s female justices, two of whom are Jewish. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born to a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant father, and Elena Kagan became the eighth Jew in Supreme Court history when she was appointed in 2010.
Safra Catz appears at No. 14. Born in Holon, she moved from Israel to Massachusetts when she was six years old and became the CEO of the computer technology corporation Oracle in 2014.
Other notable Jews on the list are Bonnie Hammer, the chairwoman of NBCUniversal Cable; Ruth Porat, the CFO of Alphabet and Google; and Dana Walden, chairwoman and CEO of Fox Television Group.
Angela Merkel and Theresa May, leaders of Germany and the UK, respectively, topped the list.