Ho Ching has been ranked the 20th most powerful businesswoman outside United States in 2020 by Fortune.

According to Fortune, they scan the planet for the most powerful women in business based outside the U.S., and every year, the task gets harder.

A total of 50 women were shortlisted for the the ranking.

The write-up for the list said that women remain vastly under‐represented in C‐suites around the world, helming just 13 of the world’s 500 largest companies.

However, looking from the perch of 2020, there are markedly more female executives each year taking their place at the highest ranks of corporate power.

Ho most powerful listing since 2016

Ho has consistently appeared on the list since 2016.

She was ranked eighth in 2016, 10th in 2017, eighth in 2018, and 19th in 2019.

Ho helms the sovereign wealth fund where she has served as executive director since 2002.

Methodology

The ride up or down the rankings is not based on hard science but touchy feely attributes.

For the 2020 list, Fortune said it shook up the methodology to reflect the unprecedented crises sweeping the globe this year, namely, the pandemic, economic turmoil, and climate change.

Fortune said its most powerful women list was founded two decades ago on four metrics: The size and health of a woman’s business, the arc of her career, and her societal and cultural influence.

For 2020, Fortune considered not just how much power a woman had amassed, but how she's using it to shape the world around her.

Ho is known for speaking her mind on her Facebook page for Temasek-related issues.

Defending the company she leads and the people the company employs has been an ongoing theme this year.

Ho's 2020 write-up said:

Temasek, Singapore’s state investment firm that Ho oversees, had been on a roll since 2016, with its portfolio growing each year. The pandemic brought that streak to an end as the net value of Temasek’s portfolio shrunk by 2% to roughly $214 billion in its latest fiscal year. The year also saw Temasek’s holdings in China surpass those in its home market for the first time. Early in the coronavirus crisis, Temasek threw a lifeline to Singapore Airlines by backing the state carrier’s rights issue worth $6.3 billion, and the fund courted Singaporeans’ goodwill by giving away hand sanitizer and face masks through its foundation. Ho has a bigger platform than most executives because she is married to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong, whose party won reelection in July. She has used her much-watched Facebook account to back the city-state’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and defend Temasek as it faced criticism for hiring employees who aren’t Singaporean. “We are enriched by our diversity and our open minds,” she wrote.

You can read Ho's 2019 write-up here and 2018's write-up here.

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Top photo by Zach Gibson via Getty