This inaugural ranking comes as the global crisis has turned a spotlight on male domination of the corporate world: would we be better off if more women were in charge? Some prominent people think so. Helen Alexander, first female president of the CBI, the UK employers’ body, says diversity is needed to prevent “groupthink” by white male boards. And 17 leading businessmen, including the chairmen of Anglo American, BP and Tesco, recently called for faster progress in appointing women to senior positions, saying the economy needed the best talent more than ever. They equated the urgency of the issue to that of climate change and poverty.

Our report celebrates women business leaders around the world. The fact is that their numbers remain tiny. Just 3 per cent of Fortune 500 chief executives are women. Across Europe, only 10 per cent of board directors of the largest companies are female (quotas have made Norway the exception, with more than 40 per cent) and the numbers are even lower in Asia. This is all the more surprising given the substantial evidence that better gender balance has a positive impact on performance. Studies by Catalyst and McKinsey in the US and Europe have found a correlation between the number of women in a company’s leadership and the company’s profitability. Financial outperformance is most significant when there is a “critical mass” of women – 30 per cent or more. And Nick Wilson of Leeds University Business School has found that having women on the board can reduce a company’s risk of bankruptcy by 20 per cent.