Good morning! Men are threatened by women's equality, there's a new IVF lawsuit, and Fortune's editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell makes a guest appearance to share why MPW is going global. Enjoy your International Women's Day this Saturday.
- Going global. Despite the current frosty DEI climate, it's incredible to step back and think about the overall trajectory of working women over the past few decades.
It wasn't until 1974 that women in the U.S. won the legal right to open a bank account without a male cosigner. In the late 1990s, when Fortune first created our Most Powerful Women in Business ranking, women were just beginning to occupy C-suite roles. Now nearly 12% of all Fortune 500 companies are run by female CEOs. That's nowhere near parity, but it is certainly progress.
(We don't track women-led companies as a moral obligation, by the way. We track it because diversity of background and thought, particularly within leadership ranks, has been shown over and over again to generate stronger financial performance. Merit-based diversity is, in fact, better for business.)
Today, in another part of the world, Saudi women are experiencing their own boom. Saudi Arabia has historically been a restrictive and even suppressive place for women, but recently it has taken a progressive turn. On the heels of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan, announced in 2016, women finally earned rights that women in the U.S. take for granted. In 2017, Saudi women earned the right to drive, and since then the share of women who work has soared, now exceeding 34%. Increasingly, Saudi women are becoming entrepreneurs and contributing meaningfully to the economy.
Saudi Arabia's overall impact on the global economy has progressed rapidly too. In 2022, it was the fastest-growing economy among G20 countries, and it has planned to invest about $3.2 trillion by 2030 to diversify beyond oil. (Investment in the U.S. is on the table, too; following President Trump’s return to office, Saudi state media said the kingdom would invest $600 billion in American businesses over the next four years.) Saudi Aramco, the energy company tied to the Saudi government, has been the most profitable business in the world over the past decade.
At Fortune, the purpose of our journalism is to make business better and to serve as a powerful, authoritative voice pressing for progress. Given Saudi Arabia's recent acceleration, particularly for women, we are excited to get closer to the action and document the progress there too.
In May, our Most Powerful Women Summit will host its first-ever event in Riyadh. The goal is to acknowledge the growing power of women in Saudi Arabia, and to bring seasoned women executives from elsewhere in the world to support their ascent.
If you believe, as Fortune does, that convening the most powerful women in the world globally is essential to creating positive change for business, please consider yourself invited to the Fortune Most Powerful Women International Summit in Riyadh. We are building our speaker lineup and attendee list now. To be considered for either, or if you'd like to help take MPW global with us, please get in touch at mostpowerfulwomen@fortune.com.
Alyson Shontell
Editor-in-Chief, Fortune
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