A third of Russia’s most successful female CEOs work for foreign companies

On Oct. 20, the RBK business magazine published a ranking of the top female CEOs in Russian business in 2015. Eight CEOs in the list work for Russian subsidiaries of foreign companies, including BMW Russland Trading, Sanofi Russia and Abbott Russia. More than half of the women on the list worked in commerce, pharmaceuticals and the automotive industry.

The rankings were based on the profit of the managed company, the number of employees and the increase in revenue by 2015 compared with the average results in the industry.

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The top position in the ranking went to Ksenia Sosnina of ILIM group, one of the leading companies in the pulp and paper industry. Before moving to ILIM, Sosina was president of the Russian branch of the U.S. firm International Paper.

More women head leading companies in Russia than in other countries, according to the authors of the ranking. For example, only 21 CEOs in this year’s Fortune magazine ranking of the 500 largest companies in the United States were women, compared with 25 in a similar ranking in Russia. The decision to make a separate rating of female CEOs grew out of that recognition, the report’s authors say.

"In the basic ranking of the best CEOs in Russia, which is called the RBK-500, female CEOs make up a little more than 5 percent, and by world standards this is a very good result and well-deserved reason to feature them separately,” wrote RBK Daily.

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