Skip to main contentBreak out the hankies. On Friday, Vera Katz gives her final State of the City address, just three weeks before stepping down after three terms as mayor of Portland.
Whatever you think of Katz's tenure, there's no denying she's been an inspiration to thousands of Portlanders--particularly women. For the past 12 years, no one has had to ask, "Who's the most powerful lady in the city?"
Come Jan. 1, however, that's an open question. So, during the past two weeks, we asked more than 50 Portland leaders to rank the five most powerful women in their fields. To gauge their relative power, we recorded all the answers, came up with a formula and spit out the results.
Among the findings:
* The pool is wide, if not terribly deep. While 20 or so names popped up regularly, the complete list reached nearly 150 names, from U.S. District Judge Anna Brown to Virginia Willard, the executive director of Northwest Business for Culture and the Arts.
* This is a list in flux. The two women who scored highest, Vicki Phillips and Nancy Hamilton, wouldn't have made the top 20 list six months ago. (Phillips wasn't even in Portland then.) And several women who would have topped the list a few years ago (most notably County Chair Diane Linn) didn't even crack the top 50.
* It's white at the top. Only one minority woman, County Commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey, cracked the top 20. "I'm keenly aware that all the women I've listed are white," says one former elected official, referring to her top five. " I've given considerable thought to Latina, Asian, African and Native American women who also belong on such a list but, beyond my own ignorance and the institutional racism in which we all swim, I have no explanation for their glaring absence."
In an effort to broaden our list, we also asked respondents to list women who are emerging as leaders. From this batch, we picked 12 of those mentioned most often (page 21). To round out our top 50, we included 18 other women who, based on our interviews, deserved special mention (page 24). Finally, to get at some of the questions that can't be answered in a spreadsheet, we sat down with Vera Katz on Monday afternoon and got her perspective on women and power (page 22).
"It's the collaborative sense that really differentiates us," she says. "Women tend to step back and let other people decide, versus having a goal, pushing it through and stepping over bodies."
1.Vicki Phillips
Superintendent, Portland Public SchoolsPower bar: 31.35 +
Any woman overseeing the state's largest school district (a $395 million annual budget, 47,918 students and 6,712 employees) ought to make this list. Some reviewers noted they were judging Phillips on potential, rather than accomplishment. "I'm praying she has power," says one business leader.
But Phillips, on the job just four months, already has some admirers. Her address to the City Club, after just a month on the job, won raves for her clarity and directness.
"I've very passionate and purposeful about my work," says Phillips, 46, the district's fifth superintendent in the past seven years. "Some people interpret that as power."
Phillips, Pennsylvania's former secretary of education, has a reputation for bringing corporate execs and political heavyweights to her side--skills some recent predecessors sorely lacked. "Her leadership and smarts are desperately needed," says one observer, "and should make a real difference."
2.Nancy Hamilton
Chief of Staff for Mayor-elect Tom PotterPower bar: 29.7 +
If you think Potter's new chief of staff came out of nowhere, you don't have a kid in Portland Public Schools.
A co-founder of the grassroots group that got the county income tax passed last year, she is--in the words of one admirer--"tenacious."
"People either love me or hate me," says Hamilton, 44, whose two children attend Irvington Elementary. "I'm either a 'pushy bitch' or 'passionate about my beliefs.'"
Hamilton, a former public-relations flack from California, earned Tom Potter's trust and gratitude after managing his low-key, low-budget general election campaign, and she'll become his chief of staff when he takes office next month.
As with Phillips, her high score is based more on her title than her track record. "She's untested as the top dog in a political organization," one observer noted. "But her position could make her a local political powerhouse."
3. Kate Brown
Senate Majority LeaderPower bar: 23.1 =
Last month, this Southeast Portland Democrat came within a plucked eyebrow of being elected as Oregon's first female Senate president. Democrats eventually gave Salem's Peter Courtney the job. But observers say that will only marginally diminish her clout and there will be other chances for Brown, a 44-year-old lawyer, to smash that glass ceiling (or, perhaps, the one in the attorney general's office).
Since being elected to the Legislature in 1991, Brown has been repeatedly judged by Capitol watchers to be one of the best lawmakers in the metro region. As majority leader in the now-solidly Democratic Senate, she'll be in charge of building support for her party's agenda--to the extent that it goes beyond cutting services. The big question: How long will Brown (who eyed a run at mayor and Congress last year) be content in a legislature that pays part-time wages for full-time work?
4. Sandi McDonough
President and CEO, Portland Business AlliancePower bar: 21.12 +
The new head of greater Portland's chamber of commerce made the power list by being a kinder, gentler version of her predecessor, who was run out of town last year.
McDonough, 50, replaced Kim Kimbrough as head of the Portland Business Alliance in May. While Kimbrough, a St. Louis transplant, was often at war with the local press corps and City Hall, McDonough, a former reporter at The Oregonian and The Seattle Times, is at ease with the media and already is earning high marks from those who monitor the intersection of business and politics. "She took over a boys'-club operation that had become paralyzed by its own ineptitude," says one local scribe. "Her friendlier approach has earned her the ear of anyone in town."
McDonough, who worked for a West Coast utility group after leaving journalism, says, "Power is all about relationships and partnerships. The more complex our society becomes, the more important the relationship aspect [of power] becomes."
5. Sandra Mims Rowe
Editor, The OregonianPower bar: 19.8 =
In 1993, The Oregonian hired Rowe as the paper's first out-of-town editor. Seven years later, the American Journalism Review said her "ambitious plans" had transformed the region's largest daily paper into "a reinvigorated newspaper with a penchant for world-class enterprise reporting."
While Rowe, 56, keeps a low profile locally, she's heavily involved in national journalism circles, serving as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and on the Pulitzer Prize board (seeing the paper itself win three Pulitzers). One media insider offers this succinct, if circular, assessment of her power. "Sure, she should have fallen on her sword after Goldschmidt," he says, referring to the O's mishandling of the former governor's sex scandal. "But she didn't. Why? Because she's on this list right here."
6. Peggy Fowler
President and CEO, Portland General ElectricPower bar: 18.48 =
Fowler's 30-year-climb from PGE chemist to its president and CEO has left her in something more akin to a hot seat than the catbird seat as Oregon's largest utility has became embroiled in the Enron/Texas Pacific/Goldschmidt mess.
But that, according to observers, is why Fowler, 53, deserves to continue to be counted among Portland's powerful women, even though her company's planned sale to Texas Pacific may reduce her official authority.
"Peggy has kept PGE moving forward during a bumpy period," says one admirer. "She's poised, articulate and the positive, local face of PGE."
Fowler, whose company serves 750,000 customers in the north Willamette Valley, is sanguine about her ongoing challenges. "I view change as an opportunity to do better," she says. "That's true for organizations as well."
7. Gert Boyle
Chairman, Columbia Sportswear CompanyPower bar: 17.82 =
"Mother" Boyle doesn't just look tough for the commercials. At 13, she and her Jewish family escaped from Nazi Germany; when she was 46, her husband's sudden death forced her to become a CEO overnight.
"It doesn't do you any good to look back," says Boyle. "If you haven't done well today, you'd better do better tomorrow."
Boyle definitely did better: In the past 20 years, Columbia's sales have soared from $3 million to $951.8 million, fueled by the famous commercials that landed the now-80-year-old matriarch on the Capitalist Chicks website as a "new face of capitalism." They have also boosted the worth of Boyle's stake in the company to at least $312 million.
Columbia's move to the 'burbs, after a well-publicized spat with Portland officials, didn't hurt Boyle's scores. "'Tough mother' ranks at the top of the list," says one local admirer. "Is it necessary to say more?"
8. Debi Coleman
Co-founder, SmartForest Ventures LLC Power Bar: 17.16 =
This no-nonsense 52-year-old didn't make it into the top 10 through charm, but then, what do you expect from a woman who climbed to the top of the alpha-male world of high tech?
Coleman worked her way up the Apple organization before coming to Oregon to take a top job with Tektronix. She then helped spin off Merix, a Forest Grove circuit-board maker, where she was CEO and chaired the board. She now heads a venture-capital firm for techie startups and serves on the Oregon Arts Commission. She and fellow power-woman Gert Boyle (see No. 7) ruffled some feathers last year at Lewis & Clark College, leaving the board when fellow directors soft-pedaled ex-president Michael Mooney's loan debacle (see "Michael Mooney: The Real Story," WW, June 18, 2004).
"A larger-than-life character who has challenged all barriers in her career path and added immensely to the vigor and welfare of Portland," says one admirer.
Coleman, however, doesn't consider herself "powerful," saying, "I think of it more as influence: how to get people to share the same goals and values."
9. Lucy Buchanan
Development Director, Portland Art MuseumPower bar: 16.83 =
When Buchanan came to town 10 years ago to take on development duties for the Portland Art Museum, she was known mostly for being one half of an administrative two-fer. Her husband, John, the art guy, was hired as the executive director. Lucy, a former ballerina, took on an even harder task: raising dollars for an overlooked museum in a place known as an artistic frontier.
While their Bill-and-Hillary business partnership is rare in the art world, what's even more unusual is the fundraising muscle Lucy, 49, has exercised in a notoriously tight-fisted town. In a decade that included a recession, she's pulled in more than $100 million--an accomplishment that causes one power rater to summarize her influence this way: "She's Lucy fucking Buchanan."
10./11. Julia Brim-EdwardsPortland School Board, Nike
Power bar: 15.84 +
For years, Brim-Edwards has been known for her work on the Portland School Board, where she has often toiled with a weak supporting cast. That could soon change, as the onetime aide to Republican Sen. Bob Packwood settles into her new job as Nike's top lobbyist. "She just got one of the most coveted jobs in politics," notes one observer, "not a small thing to do."
The 43-year-old heiress to a small medical-care fortune also earns points for her marriage to Randall Edwards, the Democratic state treasurer. "If you're looking to get your phone calls returned," says one politico, "it doesn't hurt when you're sleeping with the guy who holds the state's purse strings."
Liz KaufmanPolitical consultant
Power bar: 15.84 +
Who? That's what happens when you spend your time putting other people into power.
Over the years, Kaufman, a 46-year-old former high-school teacher, has used her connections, fundraising prowess and savvy political instincts to help elect City Commissioner Randy Leonard and former County Chair Bev Stein and pass city park and school measures. Most recently, she headed the successful effort to nix the repeal of the local income-tax surcharge.
Whether working on her own or teaming up with political kingmaker Mark Wiener, Kaufman is, as one observer put it, "the political strategist you want on your side."
12. Nancy Wilgenbusch
President, Marylhurst UniversityPower bar: 14.85 =
The university Wilgenbusch leads is relatively tiny--1,307 total students. Nonetheless, her influence is surprisingly large.
"She's very well-connected to the money in Portland and knows how to get things done," says one admirer. Since becoming Marylhurst's president in 1984, Wilgenbusch, 57, has advised a number of key Portland corporations and nonprofits, sitting on Goodwill's board and PacifiCorp's regional advisory boards.
"All too often, people rush in and say, 'Women are more nurturing and caring,'" says Wilgenbusch. "But I'm not sure that if you peel back the layers there's a lot of difference. It's more about the compassion that you see in both the best male and female leaders."
13. Sue Hildick
President, The Chalkboard ProjectPower bar: 14.52 +
Earlier this year, there were rumors about the business community recruiting an unnamed Republican pro-education woman to challenge Jim Francesconi for mayor. Didn't take long to figure out who it was.
Hildick, a former Mark Hatfield aide who previously headed the American Red Cross' Oregon Trail Chapter, didn't jump into the race, but she doesn't run from a challenge. In October, the 40-year-old became the new stepmom of three teenage daughters; in November, she was defending her organization, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Chalkboard Project, a historic coalition of Oregon's biggest foundations who have jumped into the education debate. Hildick had launched an in-your-face new ad series in which sad-eyed schoolkids wearing sandwich boards ask challenging questions about Oregon's school crisis.
"We knew they would make some people uncomfortable," says Hildick. "We didn't expect outrage."
The ads also have people talking about Hildick. "She's a Republican that you could bring into a room full of Democrats and they would all respect and fall in love with her," says one admirer, who thinks the words "mayor" and "Hildick" eventually will be linked.
14. Maria Rojo de Steffey
Multnomah County CommissionerPower bar: 9.9 =
Of the four women on the five-member Multnomah County Commission, only one cracks the top 20. Rojo de Steffey has been a bright spot on the board, whose image has been dented as County Chair Diane Linn careens from one controversy to the next. Rojo de Steffey, 59, gets credit for working behind the scenes to keep the county services on track while offering a needed voice for the region's growing Hispanic population.
15. Brenda Rocklin
Interim President and CEO, SAIFPower bar: 8.91 +
While Rocklin's only direct tie to Portland is her tiny Pearl District condo, the former Oregon Department of Justice prosecutor's presence is increasingly being felt statewide.
Since 2002, Govs. John Kitzhaber and Ted Kulongoski have asked Rocklin, 49, to take over two troubled state agencies--the Oregon State Lottery and State Accident Insurance Fund--after their top managers resigned amid controversy. She's also vice chairwoman of the new board that's anxiously awaiting a key court ruling on efforts to curb costs at the Public Employees Retirement System.
Not surprisingly, Rocklin--who commutes from Portland to Salem six days a week--says, "I'm incredibly busy and consumed by my work." But she adds, she has not regretted moving from law to public administration. Neither do those who are cheering her on. "At this point in time, she's probably the go-to person in state government," says one observer, "with a higher profile for getting things done than anyone else."
16. Kristy Edmunds
Artistic Director, PICAPower rating: 8.58 +
The rumor is that she never sleeps. Edmunds, 39, who splits her time between continents in dual roles as artistic director of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and the Melbourne International Arts Festival, is known for that fabled energy as well as her connections. "Not only has she pulled off the remarkable here," says one fan, "she also has international influence."
The filmmaker/visual artist curated programs at the Portland Art Museum in the early 1990s, and then took a big gamble in 1995 when she launched the nonprofit PICA (which now has an annual budget of $1.6 million). Last year, in the middle of an economic downturn, Edmunds sprang the Time-Based Art festival, which has changed Portland's artistic landscape, thanks to the slate of world-famous and little-known artists she has brought to town. New York-based performance artist Diamanda Galás calls Edmunds "the bravest and most ferocious presenter in America."
17. Gun Denhart
Co-founder, Hanna AnderssonPower bar: 7.92 =
When the Swedish-born Denhart couldn't find children's clothes to her liking in the United States, she and her husband started their own company, in 1983. When they sold Hanna Andersson three years ago, it had 310 employees and annual revenue of $65 million.
But Denhart (whose first name rhymes with "moon") hasn't exactly retired, establishing herself as the city's preeminent patron of tykes. The Hanna Andersson Children's Foundation, which she chairs, has given more than $5 million to child-related organizations since 2001. As a former business owner and past chair of the Oregon Business Association, Denhart, 59, is often sought out by nonprofits. She chairs Stand for Children, an advocacy group that helped defeat last month's tax-repeal measure. Say one fan, "Gun is a powerhouse of socially responsible activism."
18. Karin Immergut
U.S. Attorney for District of OregonPower bar: 6.6 =
Immergut couldn't have a more different profile from Kristine Olson, the only other woman to hold her post in Oregon.
Olson, who served from 1994 to 2001, was friends with the Clintons. Immergut, who was sworn in a year ago this week, is the former deputy to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who questioned Monica Lewinsky about the infamous blue dress.
"In this town, there are still those who resent her history with Starr," says one observer. Immergut, 43, a career prosecutor, was picked for the post when Michael Mosman was tapped for a federal judgeship. The honeymoon was short. In October, her office was sued--along with John Ashcroft and the FBI--by Portland lawyer Brandon Mayfield over the Madrid train-bombing fingerprint debacle.
Nonetheless, Immergut's position--the feds' top law enforcer in Oregon--should continue to guarantee her a place among Portland's most powerful women as long as she holds the job.
19./20. (tie) Therese Bottomly Managing Editor for News, The Oregonian
Power bar: 5.94 =
Sandy Rowe (see No. 5) may have the title. But, according to some Oregonian watchers, it is Bottomly who has the real power.
"I chose her over Rowe," says one, "because, while the special packages might get the attention--and the Pulitzers--the way the daily paper covers local issues has tremendous power to influence our leaders and their initiatives. Therese is the one making those daily judgments on the paper's coverage."
In fact, when the paper won its first Pulitzer under Rowe, insiders say it was Bottomly, a 43-year-old University of Oregon journalism grad who has spent several decades at the O, who convinced higher-ups to let reporter Rich Read pursue his story about the life of a French fry.
Bottomly shared one leadership secret with the Columbia Journalism Review. Reporters, she said in a 2001 interview, "need to leave my office feeling smarter, stronger and more able."
Judi Johansen President and CEO, PacifiCorp
Power bar: 5.94 +
Johansen's move from the administrator of the federal Bonneville Power Authority to a vice presidency at PacifiCorp in December 2000 paid off when she became top dog of the 1.6-million-customer Scottish Power subsidiary just six months later.
"Judi worked her way up in an industry that tends to be pretty male-dominant," says one admirer.
One business insider says Johansen, 46, has "jostled" her way onto the city power list because, in 2004, "she was everywhere." In addition to leading one of the area's few successful utilities, she serves as a Port of Portland commissioner and Federal Reserve Board director. In June, Johansen, a Lewis & Clark Law School alum, also stepped onto its board, filling one of the positions left vacant when fellow power-listers Boyle and Coleman fled in 2003 over the Mooney loan mess.
Going UP
Our survey respondents pick a dozen women on the rise.
Clara Padilla Andrews: After serving as New Mexico's Secretary of State (1983 to 1986), she headed north, where she now owns El Hispanic News, the largest Spanish-language paper in Oregon, and serves on the board of the Portland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Joan Brown-Kline: The former housing consultant is getting rave reviews after taking the top post at the Columbia River Council of the Girl Scouts (20,000 members) three years ago. She also helps out on several local panels, such as the Portland Housing Council board of directors.
Cynthia Brown: The head of Portland State University's computer-science department gained visibility, and power, when she was elected president of the faculty Senate and when her department lured 10 top research profs from the Oregon Graduate Institute in Hillsboro to PSU.
Serena Cruz: The county commissioner lost some clout with her failed run for the City Council two years ago, but word is she may go after embattled chair Diane Linn in 2006.
Chloe Eudaly: With her encyclopedic knowledge of the world's small presses and zines, the proprietor of Reading Frenzy is a walking independent-publishing resource center.
Mindy Grossman: As the chief of Nike's booming $3 billion clothing biz (official title: vice president of global apparel), she's one of the highest-ranking women at the company.
Lisa Grove: One of the city's top political pollsters, she's known for a sharp wit and a willingness to tell clients (who have included David Wu and Ted Kulongoski) what they don't want to hear.
Lori Hardwick: While hubbie Dan Lavey dishes out political advice (largely to Republican and corporate clients), this woman, one observer notes, "raises buckets of cash" for a wide variety of local and national pols, most recently Jim Francesconi.
Pat Johnson: The owner of JohnsonSheen Advertising is the force behind some of the most out-there ads in town, including the public schools' Chalkboard campaign (see Sue Hildick entry, page 17).
Wendy Radmacher-Willis: Can anyone turn a stodgy, painfully predictable 88-year-old organization into a provocative, influential civic player? Fans of the (relatively) new executive director of the Portland City Club say she and the young staff she's hired are up to the task.
Tiffany Sweitzer: The president of Hoyt Street Properties (and daughter of developer Homer Williams) is taking a lead role in the arts (she sits on the board of PICA) and, as one observer notes, "literally reshaping the face of our city."
Linda Wright: Until last week's column by Jonathan Nicholas, this U.S. Bank veep, who raised big bucks for Self-Enhancement Inc., was the best-kept corporate secret in town. The ink from the daily paper can only help her stock, and that of her latest cause: the pro-literacy group Start Making a Reader Today.
Portland's Ultimate POWER WOMAN
Vera Katz talks about the myth of the "superwoman."
The litany is familiar: Oregon's first female speaker of the House. The first Portland woman to serve three terms as mayor. But how does Vera Katz feel about the power she wielded during the past three decades of public service? Earlier this week, as Katz prepared for her final State of the City address, WW Arts and Culture Editor Ellen Fagg and Editor Mark Zusman asked her about men, women and how they approach leadership.
WW: How do you define power?
Vera Katz: The ability to accomplish goals, vision, using collaborative methods. It's the way I've operated for 32 years.
Collaboration is essential?
Yes, I've always felt that the power multiplies when you collaborate and give credit to other people, which you need to do to get your goals accomplished.
Do women define power differently than do men?
They may define it differently, they may define it the same, but in fact I think, for the most part, we think of it differently and act differently.
How so?
Women have a tendency to share power better. And, I hate to tell you this, but we work harder. I'm speaking in generalities here, but traditionally we have to work harder to prove ourselves.
And men?
They muscle through the issues. It's the collaborative sense that really differentiates us. Women tend to step back and let other people decide, versus having a goal and really pushing it through and stepping over bodies. There's something magical that happens when a group of women come to the table to try to solve a problem.
In what way?
It's kind of a general understanding of why you're all there, how things are done. It's an intuitive sense that we sometimes share. A sense of where everyone's going. That's very magical. Sometimes we listen with our hearts and act accordingly. That's magical. We really don't want to hurt people.
Talking about muscling through issues, what about your relationship with Randy Leonard? I have a problem now with Commissioner Leonard. It's just like he's in my face, and that's not who I am, and it's difficult.
When did you become comfortable with having power?
I never did feel uncomfortable. I grew up in a single-parent household. My mother had tremendous responsibilities. My sister was a rebel. I guess I saw that and figured, "Well, they can do it, why can't I?" The only time I truly felt uncomfortable was with the 101 votes in caucus that made me become speaker.
Were there people coming to you, saying, "Step aside, just be a good girl"? If they did, I didn't hear it. I wasn't going to do that. I had most of the votes, but I didn't have 31. And I think some of that was certainly gender. Shirley Gold was running for majority leader. Two women. Two New York women. Two New York Jewish women. And I supported the sales tax, which was an anathema. So I think it was a combination of all of that, and I just wasn't one of the boys.
What about going to an all-girls school? What was it like have someone telling you, "You can do anything"?
There was nobody in my life that told me that I could do anything. But the all-girl school did give me an opportunity to run for office. It was vice president of the class. I can't remember why I even attempted it, but there wasn't this pressure of "don't do it."
Are there any changes at City Hall you'd point to that came about because you're a woman?
I started a daycare center here. I felt that it was very important to have opportunities for parents to drop off their children.
How about at the county commission, where four of the five members are women?
I really don't understand what's going on at the county level. You would think that these bright, articulate women could really work through some of these issues. I don't know whether it's because some of them have political ambitions and they want to run for other positions. I really don't understand what is happening. I've talked to them. I've queried them. And there's an element of inability to work together, to even probably like each other.
Women's issues: What's on the list for 2005?
The workforce issues. Women have got to be able to get a piece of that economic pie, in government and the private sector. That's the reason we spent a long time on the development agreement of the south waterfront. Here was billions of dollars in construction, and we had a role in helping finance that. So, my God, if we couldn't set the standard for hiring women and minorities on that, set goals to try to achieve it, we would have failed our responsibilities.
Nationally and in Oregon, fewer women ran for office this year. Why's that?
I think a lot of women have realized that it's very difficult today. They have a family. Children. A job. And then run for political office. Also, the cost is up-it's huge. So is the time element to raise the money. When I started, there was nothing. You just picked up the phone, your telephone book and started. But you can't do that today, and so I think that discourages a lot of women. Besides, we're not superwomen anymore.
What do you mean?
We thought we could handle everything, and many women now realize that it is not possible, that something failed. My health has failed. I'm sure that there's an element of that tied to stress and to trying to do everything. After a while, they see the importance of staying home and taking care of the family.
Who do women in this city look to as an example?
For a lot of women, I was their role model. I tell the little ones, "You can do and you can be anything you want, and if anybody stops you, you come and talk to me." Because I truly believe that.
Name Dropping
Another 18 who deserve a shout-out.
We crunched the numbers and looked at the results. It wasn't the top 20 that we would have come up with (a recent arrival at No. 1? A city editor at No. 19?).
Well, the numbers don't lie. We printed them as we got them. But even after adding a dozen emerging women leaders (page 21), the list felt incomplete. So we decided to round out our roster to an even 50, choosing 18 more women who were mentioned at least once in our survey, but didn't post the numbers to get into the top tier. Here they are:
Anna Brown: The federal judge rejected the government's suggested penalty for alleged Hamas supporter Ali Khaled Steitiye, saying, "Mere political thought cannot be a basis to sentence a person. That's not the country we live in."
Nena Cook: The new president of the Oregon State Bar was named one of the Portland Business Journal's "Forty under 40" in 2002.
Pam Edstrom: Half the brain-trust at Waggener Edstrom, the PR firm that helped Bill Gates seem like a friendly nerd even as he vied for world domination.
Gillian Floren: The brainy publisher moved Oregon Business magazine from stodgy to edgy.
Vanessa Gaston: The new Urban League of Portland boss brought a fresh perspective to an agency in need of one.
Cynthia Guyer: The head of the Portland Schools Foundation is viewed as one of the savviest education activists in a town full of them.
Marge Kafoury: One of the few Kafourys who hasn't held public office, she shapes policy behind the scenes as the longtime lobbyist for the City of Portland.
Elizabeth Leach: Gallery owner, curator, advocate. She does it all.
Julie Mancini: The woman who built the Portland Arts and Lectures Series into a national draw knows local and national writers, as well as the rich people who want to hang out with them.
Patricia McCaig: This savvy, funny strategist is out of the political limelight, but not out of the picture.
Caprial Pence: She's the co-owner of a restaurant and the star of a public television show, but her ability to break into the male-dominated world of celebrity chefs draws more attention nationally than locally.
Judy Peppler: As head of Qwest's Oregon's operations, she's one of the few female CEOs in Portland and a key player at the Portland Business Alliance.
Barbara Roberts: The ex-guv remains incredibly popular and engaged in city events.
Arlene Schnitzer: Just because.
Joan Shipley: Behind every great Portland arts project, it seems, is this woman.
Jean Thorne: The former state education advisor now oversees health-care benefits for 110,000 state employees.
Roey Thorpe: She barged into town in 2001 to build Basic Rights Oregon from the ground up. They lost the gay-marriage fight, but not the war.
Kay Toran: She left the helm of the state's child-welfare agency to run Volunteers of America Oregon and sort out the financial mess at the Urban League of Portland.
The Power BarHow do you pick the most powerful woman in Portland? In our case, we talked to dozens of people, forced them to rank their picks and then entered the results into a spreadsheet filled with overly complicated formulas to come up with a
bar. Here are the details: Every time a woman was giving a No. 1 ranking, she was awarded five points. A No. 2 ranking netted four points, etc. Once those
were tallied (S), we multiplied them by the
(F) of their being mentioned (specifically, the number of times a woman was mentioned more than twice--effectively limiting our top 20 to women who were ranked high at least four times). Then, to get to a manageable number, we divided the whole mess by three and added symbols to signify whether their power was rising (+), ebbing (-) or holding even (=).
Vera's Top 10At our request, Mayor Katz reviewed our respondents' picks for the 20 most powerful women in Portland. Her overall view is that many of them (including the two at the top) have potential, but not the track record to make her list. Only one of the mayor's Top 10, Washington County GOP strategist Molly Bordonaro, did not make WW's top 50.
Nancy Wilgenbusch
Sandra Mims Rowe
Kristy Edmunds
Judi Johansen
Peggy Fowler
Molly Bordonaro
Judy Peppler
Barbara Roberts
Linda Wright
Arlene Schnitzer
WWeek 2015