Three Wharton alumnae were ranked in Forbes’ latest list of the 100 most powerful women in the world (from right to left): Safra Ada Catz, W’83, L’86; Ruth Porat, WG’87; and Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, WG’86, HON’10.
Ranked No. 40, Catz is president and chief financial officer of software company Oracle. She has been with the Redwood Shores, CA-based firm since 1999 and has served on its board of directors since 2001.
With her background in international business leadership, Catz was appointed a nonexecutive director at banking firm HSBC in 2008.
Porat is CFO of Morgan Stanley. Ranking her at No. 90, Forbes describes Porat as the “most senior woman on Wall Street,” a position she has attained after a long tenure at the bank.
She started there in 1987 and has held such roles as vice chair of investment banking and global head of its financial institutions group.
During the financial crisis, she advised the U.S. Treasury regarding mortgage giants Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York regarding troubled insurer AIG.
In addition to her Wharton MBA, Porat holds a master’s from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University.
When Lavizzo-Mourey attended Wharton, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholar.
She has since become the first female president and CEO of the Princeton, NJ-based organization, the largest health-centric philanthropic foundation in the United States.
No. 95 on the Forbes list, Lavizzo-Mourey oversees a $10 billion endowment and more than $400 million in distributions.
She earned her medical degree at Harvard University.
Forbes rankings are based on three metrics: “dollars, a traditional and social media component, and power base points,” according to the publication.
Also on the list were three other graduates of the University of Pennsylvania: Helene Gayle, M’81, CEO of Care USA (No. 36); Judith Rodin, CW’66, HON’04, president of the Rockefeller Foundation (No. 71); and Drew Gilpin Faust, G’71, GR’75, HON’08, president of Harvard (No. 83).
