Only a few months in 2025 it became clear that the year would be different due to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. The European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde characterized the uncertainty as “high and rising”. Companies have recognized that what is ahead of us will be impossible to predict.
Among those who are faced with the changing world order are some of the most powerful women in business. In its 28th year, 100 female worldwide worldwide companies are honored in the annual ranking. This year there are 21 lists at the top of European companies. Whether some of the largest fashion houses or energy companies in the world, they embody the female manager in Europe.
21
The number of women at the top of European companies on MPW
This also means that the constantly changing tariff crisis is directly or indirectly concerned with some of its business. For example, the British Pharma Giant Gian GSK achieves 50% of its income from the United States
GSK is “a global company, and pharma supply chains are complex … So we have options to alleviate what can come,” says Emma Walmsley, CEO from GSK, says Assets. “It is not wrong to say that it is a lonely job to be CEO, but it is much less lonely when you work with extraordinary people.”
MPW guides tell Assets The fact that responsibility to navigate in a nebulous world will not only fall into the top level. It will need collective intelligence and synchronicity from various experts and regions.
“It is not wrong to say that it is a lonely job to be CEO, but it is much less lonely when you work with extraordinary people.”
The CEO of Emma Walmsley GSK
“I don’t say not to know or have all the answers,” notes Belén Garijo, CEO of the German Giant Merck Group. But the company of 62,000 people in life science, healthcare and technology always plans for different scenarios.
“It’s never just about me. One of my most important leadership principles is to surround me with clever, capable people,” says Garijo.
Emma Walmsley (rank # 20 at MPW)
CEO
GSK – UK
Jaimi Joy – Bloomberg/Getty Images
Walmsley, one of the most powerful bosses of Pharma, joins the ninth year of her ambitious turnaround mission at the GSK and drives the company forward in connection with cancer and antimicrobial resistance while the AI is doubled.
Walmsley started her career at L’Oréal. She worked for the French cosmetic company for 17 years and held various general management and marketing functions in Paris, London and New York. In 2010 she came to GSK as President of Consumer Healthcare Europe and took over the CEO in 2017.
A turning point for Walmsley during her career at GSK was the breakthrough of Arexvy, the world’s first RSV vaccine, which in the first year after the start in the third quarter of 2023 achieved sales of $ 1.6 billion. The vaccine was a triumph for the pharmaceutical company after it failed to develop a covid jab.
In 2024, GSK doubled the turnover of his cancer treatments and took the company’s total turnover to $ 41.7 billion. GSK is currently investigating technological progress that aims to use AI to accelerate the discovery of drugs. Walmsley is an independent director at Microsoft. Her salary package rose to $ 13.3 million as a reward for the top line growth of your company.
Anna Borg (37th at MPW)
President and CEO
Waterfall – Sweden
With the kind permission of waterfalls
Borg heads one of the largest European energy companies with 21,000 employees on the entire continent. Vattenfall is now working with the Swedish industry to double fossil electricity production in the coming decades. Borg’s company has also undertaken to invest 17 billion US dollars in projects such as Dutch offshore wind farms over the next five years. Vattenfall would like to reach the NET zero in its entire emission chain by 2040.
Belén Garijo (39th at MPW)
Chairman of the board and CEO
Merck KGAA – Germany
Andreas Reg/with the kind permission of Merck KGAA
Garijo, a doctor through training, entered the pharmaceutical business and finally directed the integration of the biotech genzym into the parents of Sanofi-Aventis. In 2011 she entered the healthcare system of Germany Merck KGAA, turned the business and reissued his portfolio to concentrate on oncology and immunology. This year, her fifth as President and CEO of a company with 63,000 employees recorded a contract of 3.9 billion US dollars for the acquisition of SpringWorks therapeutics.
Margherita Della Valle (rank # 80 on MPW)
CEO of the group
Vodafone – UK
Lluis -Gen -AFP/Getty pictures
Della Valle took over Vodafones Helm in 2023 and made her the first female chief in the history of the British telecommunications society. Della Valle, who has spent three decades at Vodafone (most recently as CFO), has the task of increasing the profit and reversing the burglary. As part of her turning plan, she sold Vodafones Spanish and Italian weapons for € 5 billion or 8 billion euros. Her next step includes a merger of 15 billion US dollars in Great Britain with three this year, which form the largest mobile network in Great Britain after completing the mobile network and apparently stopped falling into Vodafone’s shares.
Allison Kirkby (ranked # 85 at MPW)
CEO
BT Group – UK
Richard Davies/Courtes of the BT Group
At the beginning of 2024, Kirkby was the first woman, the BT Group, the British telecommunications giant, which brought decades of consumers and telecommunications into one of the most examined session halls in British business. Kirkby, a former Procter & Gamble manager, made her brand that turned Sweden Telia and Denmark TDC turned, and she is now heading for BT through her most aggressive modernization.
At the core of your plan: a rollout of $ 20 billion to hand over broadband in the amount of $ 25 million by 2026 and a radical revision of the BT structure, with up to 55,000 roles are to be cut by the end of the decade. BT has also announced plans to divide its international activities into a new independent unit, since Kirkby continues to investigate the possible scale of the non-OK business of the telecommunications group. Investors have taken note of – Shares rose after years of stagnation when Kirkby rejects global distractions as Kirkby in order to focus on domestic dominance.
Kirkby has emphasized the importance of AI and not only makes the business faster. It urges a more integrative telecommunications future, as Great Britain with digital inequality and aging infrastructure. In the middle of an industry that calculates the diversity, Kirkby has doubled the BT’s DEI commitments.
Sophie Bellon (88th at MPW)
Chair and CEO
Sodexo – France
Nicolas Gouhier/with the kind permission of Sodexo
Bellon manages a food and drink business that arrives 80 million people every day – including the hungry fans in the Superdome of New Orleans during the Super Bowl 2025. The French second generation French businesswoman began her career in finance and worked for Crédit Lyonnais in New York as a consultant for mergers and. Then she worked as an agent for luxury brands such as Armani, Chanel and Hungaro. Bellon took over as chairman and then CEO of the 23.8 billion euro business after the death of her father in 2022, Sodexo founder Pierre Bellon.
It remains obliged to “preserve the advantages of a large company without losing the advantages of a little one”. In 2024, Bellon shot non-core shops such as the Pluxee platform of employees of employees to concentrate on their ambition, to transform Sodexo into the leader for sustainable food supply, with vegetarian sausages and ingredients from local hydroponic farms.
Under Bellon’s leadership, Sodexo also makes considerable progress in the development of its food brands such as modern recipe and kitchen work that aim to provide a wide range of, modern, modern and high -quality tailor -made food experiences that meet developing consumer preferences.
This article will be published in June/July 2025 edition of Fortune with the headline “Spotlight: Europe’s most powerful women”.
This story was originally on Fortune.com
