Forbes Ranks Prime Minister Takaichi as the World’s Third Most Powerful Woman

Dec 11, 2025 | News On Japan

TOKYO - America’s business magazine Forbes announced on December 10th that Prime Minister Takaichi has been ranked third on its list of the “World’s Most Powerful Women,” placing the Japanese leader near the top of a global ranking of 100 figures across politics, business, and culture, and marking a prominent acknowledgment of Japan’s first female prime minister.

Forbes described Takaichi as a “staunch conservative” who regards Britain’s first female prime minister, Thatcher, as her “political role model,” and assessed the emergence of Japan’s first woman to hold the country’s highest political office as signalling a break from a long era of hereditary politics and male-dominated power structures.

The top position went to von der Leyen, the European Commission president, who has now led the ranking for four consecutive years.

Others on the list include Mexico’s President Sheinbaum in fifth place and singer Taylor Swift in twenty-first.

Source: TBS

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