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POWERFUL: Michelle Obama is the most powerful black woman in the world, according to Forbes

OUT OF the one hundred most powerful women in the world, eight of them are black, according to Forbes magazine.

The figure is one less than the 2011 list, and includes one new entry, Ertharin Cousin, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme.

Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita, CEO of ArcelorMittal South Africa, and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, CEO of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, dropped off the list.

After taking a moment to weep that this figure is incredibly low, and another moment that no black British women made the list – let’s swiftly move on to celebrate the women who did make it.

Do you know all of them?

Michelle Obama
Forbes ranking: 07

I think we all know that Michelle Obama is one half of the world’s most intoxicating black power couple, but she is far from being a tidy piece of arm candy. Although, she is pretty stunning. Obama attended not one but two Ivy League colleges, Princeton and Harvard, before starting a legal career at Sidley Austin. It was here where she met Barack and mentored him. She must have been a pretty good teacher. Obama took leave of absence from her role as vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals to support her family during her husband’s presidency. As First Lady, she has been revered for her campaign work raising awareness of poverty, inequalities in health, childhood obesity and nutrition. She has become an inspiration to a generation, a role model and a style icon.

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Oprah Winfrey
Forbes ranking: 11

Ms Winfrey is so famous, you can just call her Oprah. From a troubled childhood, Winfrey began her career working as a local media journalist, and went on to head her own talk show which became the highest-rated show of its kind at its peak. Winfrey has built up a billion-dollar media empire which includes film production, a magazine and a television station OWN (the Oprah Winfrey network). Winfrey is the only African American to rank among the richest people in the US every year since 1995, and is considered not only the first female black billionaire, but the first black billionaire in the US. But she is not only rolling in dought, she gives it away, too. Winfrey is famed for her philanthropy work, and regarded as one of the most generous. Since 2007, she has donated over $300 million to worthy causes, and personally donated $10 million to help Hurricane Katrina victims. What a woman.

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Urusula Burns
Forbes ranking: 17

Perhaps less known than some of her contemporaries, Ursula Burns is the CEO of Xerox and the first African American woman to head a Fortune 500 Company. She grew up in New York housing projects, but didn’t let humble beginnings put her at a disadvantage. She has a degree in mechanical engineering from NYU and a MA in the same subject from Columbia. Burns started at Xerox (you know, the photocopying firm) as an intern and has, quite literally, worked her way up to the top. The mum-of-two lives in New York with her partner.

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Beyoncé
Forbes ranking: 32

Beyoncé is the ultimate triple threat. The all-singing, all-dancing, all-acting super star has awards coming out of her super-talented ears. Oh – and her couture clothing label House of Dereon has gone from cheap to chic over the decades. Far from being an entertainer, Beyoncé has also proved herself to be a talented songwriter and she’s married to one of the best rappers in the world. In between all of that, she has managed to give birth to her first child, daughter Blue Ivy, and has used her super stardom for good causes.

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Helene Gayle
Forbes ranking: 52

Helene Gayle is the current president and CEO of CARE USA, a member of CARE International, a leading humanitarian aid organisation fighting global poverty. Prior to this DR Gayle was director of the HIV, TB, and Reproductive Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and spent 20 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focusing primarily on HIV/AIDS. Dr Gayle, widely regarded as one of the top female thinkers working in global development, she has also advised US president Barack Obama on HIV/AIDS. Born and raised in New York, DR Gayle studied at one of the world’s most prominent universities for medical research, University of John Hopkins.

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Ertharin Cousin
Forbes ranking: 61

Ertharin Cousin, born and raised in Chicago, was this year appointed executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme – the largest humanitarian organisation in the world – following a successful 25-year career specialising in food and hunger issues. She has held executive roles in the Clinton Administration, retail chain Albertsons, U.S. non-profit Feeding America and the UN.

The American lawyer based in Rome, Italy, leads a staff of nearly 15,000 employees annually helping 100 million people in 78 nations go to bed on a full stomach. In an interview with Forbes, Cousin said of her latest challenge: “It is exciting. It is daunting. It is a blessing. To take all the experiences I’ve had in my career—from my community service work as a young person, my legal career, my work in the US national food assistance programs, my government expertise and my role as a diplomat—to tie all that up into the opportunity to feed 100 million people a year is nothing less than the opportunity of a lifetime for me.”

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Forbes ranking: 81

Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the highest-ranked African woman on the list with very good reason. She plays a key role in managing the largest economy in west Africa and the third largest in Africa after South Africa and Egypt. It is currently on track to becoming one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2025.The economist, who favours her national dress, didn’t rise to that position without a longstanding impeccable record. Okonjo-Iweala, attended Harvard an under-graduate before earning a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Having served as a managing director at the World Bank, she narrowly missed out in a bid for the World Bank presidency to US nominee Jim Yong Kim.

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Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Forbes ranking: 82

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the current president of Liberia, first elected in 2006, and the first African woman to become a head of state. In 2011, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work." Like her contemporary, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sirleaf has worked at the World Bank, and also as vice president of Citibank’s African region. Some of Sirleaf’s key achievements that have led her to be considered one of Liberia’s best leaders in history, includes the introduction of free schooling for primary school students, which increased the enrolment of girls by 40 percent. In response to a United Nations report claiming 75 percent of women had been raped or sexually abused during Liberia’s civil war, Sirleaf introduced tougher rape laws.

Do you agree with the list? Which British women do you think should have made it?