Fortune 500 news stories on Newser

Meet the Record 18 Female CEOs on the Fortune 500

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:10:26 CDT

A record 18 female CEOs are included on the 2012 Fortune 500, CNNMoney reports. Eight of them made it into the top 100: Meg Whitman : Hewlett-Packard, No. 11 Ginni Rometty : IBM, No. 18 Patricia Woertz : Archer Daniels Midland, No. 39

Walmart Rules Fortune 500 List

John Johnson — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:10:10 CDT

Turns out, last year was a pretty good one for US businesses. Total revenue for Fortune 500 companies jumped 10.5% to $10.8 trillion, while profits surged 81%. "We've rarely seen such a stark gulf between the fortunes of the 500 and those of ordinary Americans," write the editors...

Xerox CEO Shuffle Historic for Women

Kevin Spak — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:14:49 CDT

The announcement that Ursula Burns will replace Anne Mulcahy as head of Xerox is brimming with historical significance, writes Patricia Sellers in Fortune . Not only is it the first woman-to-woman CEO handoff in Fortune 500 history, but Burns will be the first black woman to head a Fortune 500 company....

Exxon Retakes Top Spot in Fortune 500

Rob Quinn — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:00:56 CDT

Exxon Mobil snagged a whopping $443 billion in revenue to unseat Wal-Mart from the top spot in this year's Fortune 500 list, CNN reports. The two behemoths thrived on jacked-up oil prices and the recession respectively, but the picture was a lot bleaker for most of the rest of the...

Wal-Mart Tops Fortune 500

M. Morris — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:07:52 CDT

Wal-Mart nosed out Exxon Mobil for the second consecutive year to land atop the 2008 Fortune 500, with $37.7 billion in revenues, the magazine said today. In profits, the oil company far outstripped the megaretailer. Three of the top 5 on the list were oil companies, the AP reports....

Buffet Unseats Gates as Richest Man on Earth

Zach Samalin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:44:52 CST

Bill Gates has passed the gilded torch: Warren Buffett and Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim have ended the Microsoft founder's 13-year reign as richest man on earth, Forbes reports. Buffett's fortune grew $10 billion this year to $62 billion, while Slim weighs in with an estimated $60 billion. Gates trails...

Black Fortune 500 CEOs in Short Supply

Nick McMaster — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:03:19 CST

The departure of Dick Parsons from Time Warner and Stan O'Neal from Merrill Lynch has reduced the already sparse population of African-American CEOs running Fortune 500 companies to an extremely paltry four, reports AP. CEOs of any color have a short shelf life, and the small numbers of black chiefs...

Liz Claiborne Dead at 78

Peter Fearon — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 05:03:26 CDT

Designer Liz Claiborne, whose styles aimed at career women revolutionized everyday fashion sense in America and brought feminine new looks to the workplace, is dead at 78. She was the first woman founder of a Fortune 500 company. Claiborne died Tuesday in New York, after a lengthy battle with bone...