Welcome to the 2011 FierceWireless Most Influential Women in Wireless list. If you have been a FierceWireless reader for the past few years, you may remember our annual Women in Wireless feature, in which Fierce editors tracked the top female stars in the wireless industry (click here to see the 2010 list, here for the 2009 list and here for 2008). This year we have taken a slightly different tactic with our annual feature. Instead of profiling 10 different women every year, we are now ranking the top 15 women in the industry based on what we believe to be their "influence" in the industry.
What exactly is "influence" and how do we measure it? We picked women based on the role they play in their company and in the wireless industry. Women who made this list were selected for their accomplishments, their technical savvy, their leadership and, perhaps most importantly, their ability to sway the industry--whether that's through their technology choices, their work on standards bodies or their ability to negotiate tough deals.
In the traditionally male-dominated world of telecom, it's not always easy to find women in top-ranking positions. But that is changing. Over the past year we've seen more women advance to positions of power than ever before.
I believe that Fierce's editors have compiled a list that encompasses some of the best and brightest female executives in the business. To be clear, this list is a compilation of women who we think are movers and shakers in the U.S. wireless industry. We realize that wireless is a global business, and many of our candidates work for international companies, but we selected women based on their influence here in the United States.
Click here to check out the 2011 FierceWireless Most Influential Women in Wireless. --Sue