Forbes Magazine's Most Powerful Women Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In 94th position is a TV commentator/reporter know for her tough interviewing style. She was born in Appleton, WI and earned a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., she is maried to a fellow member of the bar, John Coale, who was an adviser to Sarah Palin. She first became known to millions of TV viewers who were following the O.J. Simpson case when she appeared as a legal expert on CNN's coverage. Can you name this frequently seen TV journalist?

Answer: Greta Van Susteren

Greta is the nightly host of the Fox TV show "On the Record". In addition to being a lawyer, she is also somewhat of a restaurateur, having part ownership of "The Old Mill Inn", on Long Island, N.Y.

Note: Diane Sawyer was number 23 on the list.

2. Jan Fields came in 88th on the list. She is the United States president of one of the most famous global companies in history. At the age of 23 she started working for that company, making $2.65 an hour. Her 2011 base salary was $593,000 and her total compensation package for the year was over $2,000,000. The company she works for started in 1940 and in 2011 had estimated sales of over $25 billion. Who is her employer?

Answer: McDonald's

Started in '40 by a pair of brothers, the company became the huge success it is today when Ray Croc took control in 1955. At the age of 23, Jan was cookin' up french fries at the McDonald's in Dayton, OH. She was C.O.O. and Executive V.P. for McDonald's U.S. business from August 2006 until January 2010, when she was promoted to president. She is responsible for the bottom line at over 13,000 locations.
In keeping with the company's stated aim of producing healthier choices to their menus, she lost 90 pounds. That's some will power, or perhaps "won't" power!

Interesting note: As a youngster she first wanted to become a Catholic nun.

3. Ellen Johnson, number 82 on the list, was born October 29, 1938 in the capital city of Monrovia, Liberia. At the age of 17 she married James Sirleaf and traveled to the United States. She gained her education in the U.S. before returning to Liberia where she was elected President in 2005. She was a co-winner of The Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. At which American University did she earn her Master's Degree in Public Administration?

Answer: Harvard

She graduated in 1971. She had earlier received an undergraduate degree from Madison Business College in Wisconsin. She won the presidential election by defeating George Weah, capturing nearly 60% of the vote. Her inauguration as Liberia's 24th President on Jan. 16, 2006 was witnessed by many foreign dignitaries, including the United States First Lady Barbara Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In 2011 Sirleaf shared The Nobel Peace Prize with fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Tawakel Karman of Yeman.

4. J.K. Rowling, a virtual unknown till the late 1990s, is placed 78th on the list. She is, of course, the author of the "Harry Potter" series of books that have sold over 400 million copies around the world. She rose from near poverty to become a member of "Forbes Magazine"'s List of the World's Richest People with an estimated $1 billion net worth. She has been honored with many awards. In 2001 she collected two prestigious awards. One was The Hugo Award for Best Novel, what was the other one?

Answer: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)

She won it for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", the fourth novel in the series. She was honored with the OBE in 2001, and took The Hugo for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Ms. Rowling won the H.C. Andersen Award in 2010, and in 2007 she was runner-up to Vladimir Putin for "Time's" Person of the Year. Joanne Rowling, born July 31, 1965, was in poverty and living on social security when she came up with the idea for the first book while traveling aboard a train in 1990.

She is a graduate of the University of Exeter and the mother of three children. I can almost hear Tony Bennett singing "Rags to Riches".

5. In 14th place is a singer-actress who is a prominent, albeit sometimes controversial, occupier of the entertainment spotlight. She was born in New York and briefly attended N.Y.U. before dropping out to begin her career. This flamboyant performer has won numerous Grammys and more than a dozen MTV Awards. Her 2011 album "Born This Way" sold over eight million copies around the world. Can you name her?

Answer: Lady Gaga

Stephani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born March 28, 1986 in The Big Apple.
As Lady Gaga, who first came into prominence in 2008, she has sold over 20 million albums and more than 60 million singles around the world. She was named Artist of the Year by Billboard Magazine in 2010 and the same magazine estimated her gross income for 2011 at over $25 million.
On TV she appeared on "Saturday Night Live" (2009 and 2011) and been a judge on "So You Think You Can Dance" (2011).

6. Number 10 on the list is Sheryl Sandberg. After earning her M.B.A. from Harvard in 1995 she held many important positions before becoming Facebook's C.O.O. in 2008. After four years in that job she became the first female member of Facebook's Board of Directors. Before she began her social networking career, what important position did she hold from 1996-2001?

Answer: Chief of Staff to theTreasurer of the United States

She was Chief of Staff to the 71st Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers, under President Bill Clinton.
In 2001 she joined Google as V.P. of Operations and Sales and she remained with them until Mark Zuckerberg hired her to run his emerging company in 2008.
She has served on the Board of Directors of both the Walt Disney Company and Starbucks. She is the mother of two children and the wife of David Goldberg, whom she married in 2004.

7. Number eight on the list, Christine Lallouette Lagarde, is the first female Managing Director and Chairman of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.). She was born in Paris on New Year's Day in 1956. She worked her way to the top job at the I.M.F. after serving in several other positions. Which of the following jobs, all of which she held, did she hold for just one month?

Answer: French Minister of Agriculture

Ms. Lagarde was Minister of Agriculture from May 18, 2007-June 18, 2007. She left that position to become Minister of Finance, a job she held until June 29, 2011. At that time she became the head of the I.M.F. replacing the disgraced Dominique Strauss-Kahn who resigned under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations.

Her five year term officially began July 5, 2011. As a teenager she was a proud member of the French national sychronized swimming team. While at university she belted out songs for a group called "Les Messages Mixes".

She was also an intern at the U.S. Capitol to representative William Cohen in 1977. She is a woman of many interests including reading, cooking, embroidering, tending to her garden and is also an avid SCUBA diver. She is the mother of two sons.

8. In the number five spot we find Jill Abramson. She was born in N.Y.C. on March 19, 1954. She graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in History and Literature in 1976. While in college, she was the Arts editor for "The Harvard Independent". Her journalistic career led her to become the first female editor at one of the world's best known and most influential publications. Can you pick the proper paper?

Answer: The New York Times

She assumed that lofty role in September 2011. Along the way she worked at Time magazine for three years, and in 1988 she took the job of Senior Reporter in the D.C. Bureau of The Wall Street Journal. Ms. Abramson eventually rose to become the W.S.J's Managing Editor.

She also had a brief tenure as a Princeton University professor (2000-2001). Somehow she also managed to find the time to author three books, quite diverse in their content. One was about the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and her third is about her Golden Retriever, "The Puppy Diaries" (2011).

She is married to a fellow Harvard grad and is the mother of two children.

9. In third place on the list is Dilma Rousseff. On October 31, 2010 she was elected to be the 36th president of her South American country and the first woman to be so chosen. She assumed the office on January 1, 2011 succeeding two term President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. In 1979 she was a co-founder of her country's Democratic Labour Party. Can you conclude which country it is?

Answer: Brazil

She was born December 14, 1947 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. When she was in her twenties she was arrested and tortured for her guerrilla activities against the military dictatorship that had seized control of her homeland. She graduated with a degree in Economics from Rio Grande do Sul Federal University in 1977. She has held the posts of Brazil's Secretary of Energy and Communication (1993-1994), Minister of Energy (2002) and Minister of Mines and Energy (2003-2005). She is a woman of many interests, including Greek mythology, history, reading and opera.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who attended her inauguration finished runner-up on the list. And now...

10. ...a drumroll please, as we announce Forbes magazine's Most Powerful Women in the World, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As Frank Sinatra would sing she is "A, number one, top of the list, head of the heap". It is the sixth time she has been so honored by Forbes Magazine having previously won in 2006-2009 and 2011. Whom did she *defeat* to become chancellor?

Answer: Gerhard Schroder

Ms.Merkel, a member of the Christian Democratic Union since 1990 defeated Herr Schroder and took office on November 22, 2005. She was born July 17, 1954 in Hamburg, W. Germany and graduated from the University of Leipzig (1978) with a degree in Physics.

She later earned a doctorate for her thesis regarding Quantum Chemistry. After the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1990 she was elected to the German legislature (the Bundestag). She served as Minister of Women and Youth (1993-1994) and Minister of the Environment (1994-1998). On February 15, 2011 she was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama.

Her deft handling of the Eurocrisis gave her an approval rating of 77%, the highest she has ever received from her grateful fellow countrymen.

As they say in Germany: "herzlichen gluckwunsch"! (Congratulations).

Source: Author paulmallon

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Each year "Forbes Magazine" compiles and publishes its list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. The following are from their list released in August, 2012.

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