Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit 2013

October 8, 2013

The Summit is the world’s premiere gathering of women leaders in business, government, academia, philanthropy, and the arts. Each fall, a select group comes together to exchange big ideas and learn. The program — no speeches! — is diverse and designed to facilitate energetic and provocative conversation. Participation is by invitation only.

Fortune created Most Powerful Women as a cover package in 1998 with a simple idea that women were gaining significant power in the corporate world and had become a lot more interesting than in the old days when women leaders, to thrive, had to behave like men.

We started with Fortune’s annual Most Powerful Women list, which ranks the top 50 women in corporate America. We measure the women on four criteria: the size and importance of her business in the global economy, the health and direction of her business, the arc of her career (how quickly she has moved up and where she’s likely to go from here), and social and cultural influence. We use the same criteria to rank the Fortune International 50 MPW.

What started as a list 15 years ago has evolved into one of the world’s most extraordinary leadership communities, convening the preeminent women in business — along with selected leaders in government, philanthropy, education, and the arts — for wide-ranging and inspiring discussions.