Forbes fifth annual ranking of the 100 most powerful women in the world sees German Chancellor Angela Merkel top the list for the third successive year. Merkel is followed by Sheila Blair, the head of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and in the third place ranks Indra Nooyi, CEO of the global giant, PepsiCo.

Forbes’ list evaluates power as a composite of public profile and financial muscle. While state leaders control the nation’s gross domestic product, the head of a company is in command of the revenues of her business. At the fourth place in the list is Angela Braly who continues to hold the reins of Wellpoint in spite of major health insurer suffering a setback this year. At number five is Cynthia Caroll who is leading the mining giant Anglo-American towards a commodities boom.

While Forbes’ list of the 100 most powerful women in the world reveals the gains made by individual female leaders all over the world, women as a group however, seem to be making only modest progress. For the past ten years, women have formed around 46% of the American labor force but only 15%of the top corporate jobs are held by women. Research undertaken by the nonprofit organization Catalyst further shows that less than 3% of the biggest companies in the US have women as chief executives.