The Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list has been released and I’m embarrassed to say that of the top 10, I only really knew who one of them was right off the bat.

Here are the top 10:

  1. Angela Merkel – Chancellor, Germany
  2. Wu Yi – Vice premier, China
  3. Ho Ching – Chief executive, Temasek Holdings, Singapore
  4. Condoleezza Rice – Secretary of State , U.S.
  5. Indra K. Nooyi – Chairman, chief executive, PepsiCo, U.S.
  6. Sonia Gandhi – President, India
  7. Cynthia Carroll – Chief executive, Anglo American, U.K.
  8. Patricia A. Woertz – Cochairman, Archer Daniels Midland, U.S.
  9. Irene Rosenfeld – Chairman, chief executive, Kraft Foods, U.S.
  10. Patricia Russo – Chief executive, Alcatel-Lucent, U.S.

Other women I recognized from their names alone without any descriptors:

20. Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Supreme court justice, US
21. Oprah Winfrey – Chairman, Harpo, US
22. Margaret Whitman – Chief executive, president, Ebay, US
23. Queen Elizabeth II – Queen, UK
24. Melinda Gates – Cofounder, cochairman, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US
25. Hillary Rodham Clinton – US senator, New York, US
26. Nancy Pelosi – Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, US
32. Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding – Director, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, US
51. Gloria Arroyo – President, Philippines
55. Meredith Vieira – Host, The Today Show, US
60. Laura Bush – First Lady, US
62. Diane Sawyer, Co-anchor, Good Morning America, US
63. Katie Couric – Anchor, managing editor, CBS Evening News, US
71. Aung San Suu Kyi – Nobel Peace laureate, Democratically elected leader of Myanmar, 1990
74. Christiane Amanpour – Chief international correspondent, CNN

How many of these powerful women did you know about?

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