Latest news with #NinaAjemian
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
This year's new female Fortune 500 CEOs have one thing in common
Good morning! Taylor Swift buys back her masters, PBS sues Trump, and the 2025 Fortune 500 is here. – 55 out of 500. The 2025 Fortune 500 is out this morning—and women run 11% of companies on this year's list. Of the 500 businesses that claim spots on the ranking of the largest U.S. companies by revenue, female CEOs lead 55 of them. After two years at 10.4%, 11% is a slight increase. My colleague Nina Ajemian (who curates the second half of this newsletter each day!) has a rundown of this year's female Fortune 500 CEOs. After Karen Lynch's exit from CVS Health in October, GM is the largest Fortune 500 company, at No. 18, helmed by a female CEO—Mary Barra. As readers of this newsletter likely know, Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Business list published about two weeks ago. This is the first time the Fortune 500 and MPW list have come out around the same time, so it's worth a reminder of how these two cohorts are different. The MPW list is an editorial ranking, in which Fortune editors rely on data, and other factors like influence, to choose the 100 Most Powerful Women working in business around the globe. The Fortune 500 is U.S.-based and relies solely on numbers; only 21 of the 55 female Fortune 500 CEOs made this year's MPW list. What stands out to me about this year's Fortune 500 is a trend among new female CEOs. It's become exceedingly rare for Fortune 500 companies to choose women as outside CEO hires. All of the newly-named female Fortune 500 chiefs in the past year were promoted into their jobs—at Ulta Beauty, Principal Financial, U.S. Bancorp, Marathon Petroleum, Albertsons, S&P Global, and Freeport-McMoRan. Is that aligned with broader executive hiring trends, or are companies scared to bet on women without an internal track record? Reply to this email to tell me what you think—and read more from Nina here. Emma The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune's daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today's edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here. In total, Fortune 500 companies represent two-thirds of U.S. GDP with $19.9 trillion in revenues, and they employ 31 million people worldwide. Last year, they combined to earn $1.87 trillion in profits, up 10% from last year—and a record in dollar terms. View the full list, read a longer overview of how it shook out this year, and learn more about the companies via the stories below. IBM was once the face of technological innovation, but the company has struggled to keep up with the speed of Silicon Valley. Can a bold AI strategy and a fast-moving CEO change its trajectory? Read more This year, Alphabet became the first company on the Fortune 500 to surpass $100 billion in profits. Take an inside look at which industries, and companies, earned the most profits on this year's list. Read more UnitedHealth Group abruptly brought back former CEO Stephen Hemsley in mid-May amid a wave of legal investigations and intense stock losses. How can the insurer get back on its feet? Read more Keurig Dr. Pepper CEO Tim Cofer has made Dr. Pepper cool again and brought a new generation of products to the company. Now, the little-known industry veteran has his eyes set on Coke-and-Pepsi levels of profitability. Read more NRG Energy is the top-performing stock in the S&P 500 this year, gaining 68% on the back of big acquisitions and a bet on data centers. In his own words, CEO Larry Coben explains the company's success. Read more This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
In Q1 2025, AI commanded 71% of total VC deal value, according to PitchBook
The venture capital market reminds me of a roller coaster—but probably not the kind you're imagining. Think about that moment right after you're seated and strapped in. The car is climbing—click, click, click—and you're working your way up, expecting freefall any minute. But what if that drop never quite materializes? What if you're stuck on the way up? VC these days feels caught in the climb. There's AI optimism, there's deal flow, and a resilient sense of purpose—but the payoff keeps stalling for one reason or another. Take IPOs: Klarna, CoreWeave, and Hinge Health all filed to go public in quick succession. CoreWeave took the plunge, only for markets to get throttled by Trump-fueled tariff news. Klarna and Hinge Health? They've since reportedly backed off, indefinitely. AI, meanwhile, is a lifeline, and the dominant force in the marketplace. It seems obvious enough, but when the data comes out, it's so stark it bears repeating: For Q1 2025, AI has accounted for 71% of total VC deal value, according to new PitchBook data. That's on track to be a substantial jump from 46.8% last year. This includes Anthropic's $4.5 billion round, Groq's Saudi Arabia-fueled $1.5 billion, Infinite Reality's $3 billion round, and OpenAI's unparallelled $40 billion round—the largest private funding round in history. CVCs are operating in lock-step, with 41% of their Q1 deals AI-focused, according to PitchBook. But looking at other numbers, cracks start to show. M&A has been happening, including some very high-profile M&A—here's looking at you, Wiz—but most M&A has been skewed towards smaller companies: PitchBook estimates 76% of completed acquisitions happened before the acquired company raised its Series B. Which is tough: M&A of any kind feels like good news, but as it currently exists, VC demands larger exits in the long-term. First-time financing is also elusive for many—in Q1, PitchBook counted $3.8 billion invested across 892 first-time deals, down year over year from $4.1 billion in Q1 2024. There is good news, of course, with the $32 billion Wiz acquisition and the CoreWeave IPO drumming up more exit value since the last quarter of 2021. But clarity remains hard to come by. I've been thinking a lot this week about United Airlines, and the two completely different scenarios it outlined in its guidance. That resolute uncertainty feels like a microcosm of the broader landscape. This is the year of no guidance. Relentless volatility brings motion, but not direction. Which, I suppose, is why it feels like we're stuck on the ride. See you tomorrow, Allie GarfinkleX: @agarfinksEmail: a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here. Nina Ajemian curated the deals section of today's newsletter. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
