Taylor Swift Is the World’s Greatest Female Leader. Seriously.
Who’s the world’s greatest female leader? It isn’t who you’d think. First Lady Michelle Obama, potential next President Hillary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai don’t even make the list. It’s Taylor Swift. (At least according to Fortune which, after this, we’ll be putting less stock in.) Yes, the sweeter than candy country-turned-pop singer has nabbed the sixth spot on Fortune’s list ranking the world’s 50 greatest leaders.
At only 25, the artist commands an army of superfans and is currently the highest paid woman in the music business. Her most recent album, 1989, was the bestselling in 2014 and crushed records left and right, all of which is great. The thing is, Fortune says it’s not even really about her music (if it was based on sales, she’d certainly be worthy of the honor). Instead, the magazine notes Swift’s business-savvy, including trademarking multiple phrases such as “This sick beat” and securing domain names (ahem taylorswift.porn). “She has proved shrewder at honing a brand in the social media age than virtually any other person or company,” they write. “And she’s done it without resorting to dumbed-down salacious gimmickry.” Additionally, the decision to make Spotify enemy No. 1 on her hit list, will have enduring ramifications on the music industry for a long while and they did say, “To make this roster, it was not enough to be brilliant, admirable, or even supremely powerful (see Moisés Naím’s essay on Vladimir Putin). We set out to find singular leaders with vision who moved others to act as well, and who brought their followers with them on a shared quest. We looked for effectiveness and commitment and for the courage to pioneer.”
Swift lags just behind (in order) Apple CEO Tim Cook, President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, China’s President Xi Jinping, Pope Francis, and Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India. Behind Swift is Joanne Liu, the International President of Medecins Sans Frontieres in the seventh spot, GM CEO Mary Barra at nine, number 18 Melinda Gates, and more. If you’re wondering where she placed among men, Swift outranked Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Lebron James.
Interestingly enough, even though it does seem farfetched for Swift to surmount these accomplished men and women, Fortune doesn’t touch on what really makes her so influential. Profits and vocational acumen aside, the singer can make or break careers with just one Instagram photo (hello Haim! Goodbye ex-boyfriends!), inspire an entire generation of young women to not only love themselves but also Taylor Swift memorabilia, and change the face of feminism with poignant lyrics.
Perhaps it’s a stretch seeding Swift instead of other actual world leaders, but don’t underestimate the influence of girl power. Who knows, maybe Swift’s name will be the one on the ticket come 2016. Stranger things have happened!
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