By Sarah McInerney
Westpac boss Gail Kelly is one of Australia's most senior business people but she also wields more power than US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, talk show host Oprah Winfrey and the Queen, according to Forbes magazine.
The magazine's annual list of the world's most powerful woman ranked Kelly at No.18, putting her ahead of two queens and three prime ministers. It is a drop from the No.11 spot she secured last year.
World's most powerful women ... Gail Kelly ranked number 18.
List co-editor Chana Shoenberger said the compilers looked at three criteria: public profile through worldwide media mentions, professional accomplishments and economic influence.
She said Kelly outperformed someone with as high a profile as Queen Elizabeth because of her direct economic influence as an employer of 40,000 people through a company with a reported $440 billion in assets."In the case of Gail Kelly, she heads this major bank, she's just taken it through a merger of another bank, of all the banks headed by women hers is among the biggest in the world and certainly one of the most important in the region," she said.
"The Queen has a lot of influence worldwide, but her influence is mostly moral."
Kelly is the only Australian on the list.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel took out the No.1 spot for the fourth consecutive time. In second place was Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which insures US banks.
Banking analyst T.S. Lim, from Southern Cross Equities, was unsurprised by Kelly's position on the list.
He said she was known for her people management skills and had proved many wrong with her handling of the merger with St George.
"It has been a pretty good bank, it is a testament to the strength of the financial system here and to the way she has managed the merger with St George," he said.
"There were a lot of critics about that transaction but I believe she has managed to pull it off."
Shoenberger said her drop from No.11 to 18 should not be seen as a negative.
"Every year the universe of women we look at for the list gets bigger and as a consequence other women move down," she said.
Clinton was ranked No.36, Winfrey No.41, US first lady Michelle Obama No.40 and the Queen No.42.