The 2021 Forbes list of the most powerful women in the world includes 40 CEOs, 19 world leaders, an immunologist and, for the first time in more than a decade, a new name in the first place: MacKenzie Scott.
Angela Merkel has been in first place for 15 of the last 17 years that Forbes has published the ranking (the only years when Merkel was not: 2004, before she became chancellor and in 2010, when the then First Lady was installed, Michelle Obama). Forbes argues that unlike many powerful women on the list, who have to "account" to someone else, MacKenzie is the only one.
Three years ago, MacKenzie Scott was a writer, wife and mother of four who, in the 1990s, helped her husband start Amazon.
She stayed out of the media spotlight - but then divorced Jeff Bezos, took a quarter of his stake in Amazon, and almost immediately began planning how to give it all away.
MacKenzie is the third richest woman in the United States and the 21st richest individual in the world. She has signed the Affidavit, a commitment to donate at least half of her fortune to charity.
In 2020, Scott donated $ 5.8 billion to charity, one of the largest annual distributions by a private individual to the organizations he works with.
In addition to philanthropy, MacKenzie Scott is a writer. In 2005 he won the American Book Award for his novel The Testing of Luther Albright. The second book, "Traps", was published in 2013.
With $ 57 billion still to donate, Scott has big plans and will continue to influence for good.
