FORTUNE EDITORS ON WHY ONLY ONE BLACK WOMAN MADE THE MOST POWERFUL WOMEN LIST

Nonetheless, we did some digging and reached out to Fortune’s Ellen McGirt and Kristen Bellstrom. They explained that all women listed must have an operational role in a large-scale company. “We have a couple of CFO’s who have outside influence in their companies, but otherwise we really just consider women who are in operating positions.” That is why women like Denise Young-Smith, the VP of Worldwide Human Resources at Apple Inc., didn’t make the list, she said. She added that Channing Dungey, who was appointed last year as president of ABC Entertainment, was also in the running. However, she was not selected because “her business was not quite large enough. We don’t have a lot of women in entertainment and it tends to be because the businesses that they control aren’t as large as some of these Fortune 500 companies,” Bellstrom explained.

Fei Wu

Fei Wu is the creator and host for Feisworld Podcast. She earned her 3rd-Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, persisting when the other 8 year-olds quit the hobby. Now she teaches kids how to kick and punch, and how to be better humans.

She hosts a podcast called Feisworld which attracts 100,000 downloads and listeners from 40 different countries. In 2016, Fei left her lucrative job in advertising to build a company of her own. She now has the freedom to help small businesses and people reach their goals by telling better stories, finding more customers and creating new revenue streams.