Company: DuPont
Position: CEO and chair
Global 500 Rank: 285
With a master's degree in management from Northwestern University -- which she received after studying mechanical engineering at Tufts -- Ellen Kullman headed to General Electric.
She moved to DuPont in 1988 as a marketing manager and has been with the company for over 20 years. In 2006, Kullman was named EVP and manned the company's business platforms, as well as marketing and sales.
In January 1, 2009, Kullman became DuPont's first female CEO. In the past year, the company's
Kullman recently told PBS, "Parenting is good training to be CEO because we can't control our children's actions, right? It helped me understand that just because I said so, wasn't a reason for them to do anything."