Fortune Magazine announced its 10^th annual list of the 50 Most Powerful Women and while Oprah made the list, she barely made the top 10 at number 8. Who is more powerful than Oprah you ask? That question alone should keep you reading for a couple of more sentences.

For decades, the road to success and power has looked quite barren and uncertain - perhaps even a dead end. Congratulations to these powerful and influential women for forging new paths for all professional women. The top 10 most powerful women as ranked by Fortune are as follows:

1. Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP)
2. Anne Mulcahy, Xerox Corporation (NYSE:XRX)
3. Meg Whitman, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY)
4. Angela Braly, WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE:WLP)
5. Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT)
6. Pat Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE:ADM)
7. Susan Arnold, The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG)
8. Oprah Winfrey, Harpo Inc.
9. Andrea Jung, Avon Products, Inc. (NYSE:AVP)
10. Brenda Barnes, Sara Lee Corp. (NYSE:SLE)

What is Power?

How do you get on the list of the 50 Most Powerful Women?

According to Fortune,

“Fortune ranks women in for-profit companies based on the size, importance, and health of their business in the global economy; career momentum; and social and cultural influence."

Power is not just money. It means affecting change in companies, industries and markets. And helping others adapt to change. In this case power may also mean making it in a man’s world. Give credit to Zoe Cruz of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), who is co-President of one of the top firms on Wall Street. No surprise, she is also the top money maker.

From my observations, a few other tips that may help you make this list in 2008.

Go big. Go get a job for a big, powerful, high profile company that gets a lot of press coverage. Look at the list above. All of these companies are public name brands except Harpo – and we all know that is Oprah.

Overcome bias. Overcome the natural bias that selects men for many executive positions. Only one in six board members is a woman.

Be between 40 and 60 years old. Only one woman, Sheryl Sandberg, from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is younger than 40. She is 38. Of the group, 40% are 40 to 49 years old while 52% are 50 to 59 years old. Only three women are age 60 or older.

Don’t care for money. Less than 50% of the 25 highest paid women as reported by Fortune are on the list of the most powerful. The highest paid woman was Zoe Cruz from Morgan Stanley who took home $30 million and also ranks 16^th on the most powerful women list.

Watch your back. Keep pushing ahead. Thirteen women (26%) that were on the list in 2006 did not make it in 2007.  Most notably is the absence of Martha Stewart on the list (28^th in 2006).

I find it interesting that of the Global 50 Most Powerful Women, three of the top five women are Americans working oversees (all in Europe). That may indicate that while American women may not have achieved parity in their own market, their experience is valued around the world.