World's Greatest Leaders, Ivanka Trump Africa, IBM Earnings: Broadsheet April 18

Claire Zillman
Updated
Endeavor IPO, Disney Georgia, Abigail Spanberger: Broadsheet May 30

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Ivanka Trump tours Côte d’Ivoire, we get a little more information about Serena Ventures, and Fortune’s list of the World’s Greatest Leaders is out. Have a lovely Thursday.

  • EVERYONE’S TALKING

    • Women of WGL. Fortune’s annual World’s Greatest Leaders list is out this morning. It’s a celebration of individuals who are selfless and action-oriented; who risk reputation, fortune, and esteem in pursuit of a greater good.

    Among them are Anna Nimiriano, the editor-in-chief of South Sudan’s Juba Monitor newspaper, who carries on with her work despite an explicit threat from the nation’s president to kill journalists.

    Then there’s Fatma Samoura of Senegal, who was named the first female secretary general of FIFA and tasked with rescuing soccer’s world governing body from a corruption scandal. On her watch, FIFA reclaimed financial oversight of member organizations and has seen the share of women in its administration jump from 32% in 2016 to 48%.

    And Joy Buolamwini, a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab, made the list for doing arguably more than anyone else to flag bias in artificial intelligence. Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, Buolamwini published a study that showed how facial-recognition technology from Microsoft, IBM, and China’s Megvii performed better when analyzing photos of lighter-skinned men than darker-skinned women. Her work prompted Microsoft and IBM to update their approach.

    You can read the full list of World’s Greatest Leaders here.

    And it’s well worth your time to read Fortune‘s feature on the honorees at the top of the list: Bill and Melinda Gates, who are a singular No. 1 pick because “the power of their leadership is definitely double-barreled,” writes Fortune editor-in-chief Cliff Leaf:

    “If Bill’s superpower is speaking truth to the mighty, Melinda’s may well be hearing the truth of the unmighty—and then internalizing and sharing that secret, often brutally repressed wisdom.”

    The work of their namesake Gates Foundation has been, without question, world-changing. It’s helped transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people by funneling $45.5 billion toward global health, development, and policy projects over the past two decades. One measure of progress: A child born today is half as likely to die before the age of 5, compared to a child born in the year 2000.

    If you consider that a source of optimism, it’s another mission accomplished for the Gateses.

    “[W]e have to believe in the world getting better,” Melinda told Cliff. “And we have to hold that belief in progress and help others hold that belief so they’ll come along on the journey with us.”

    “It’s not at all a naive optimism,” she said. “It’s a realistic optimism. We’re trying to envision the future—as leaders envision the future of where their company or their mission will go. And for us it’s a mission that all lives have equal value.”

    Claire Zillman @clairezillman claire.zillman@fortune.com

  • ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

    • Ivanka on the Ivory Coast. Ivanka Trump is finishing up a four-day tour of Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire promoting Trump administration’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity initiative. On the tour, she said that not only did President Trump consider her for the World Bank job, but she passed on it, and announced a program that will support women cocoa farmers. Bloomberg

    • Another 100. Along with Fortune‘s World’s Greatest Leaders, the Time 100 is out this week, featuring Shonda Rhimes on Sandra Oh, Kirsten Green on Aileen Lee, Kamala Harris on Christine Blasey Ford (alongside a profile on Brett Kavanaugh), and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter on Michelle Obama. Forty-eight out of the 100 are women, a record for the list. Time

    • Too slow and steady? After blockbuster reports on YouTube’s failures to moderate or stop the spread of harmful content, CEO Susan Wojcicki reflects on the crises. “Her deliberate style may be at odds with the pace and scale of horrors and just plain stupidity that relentlessly arises on YouTube,” the New York Times says. New York Times

    • Barra’s legacy. Mary Barra’s tenure as chief executive of General Motors has done more than put one woman in the Fortune 500 C-Suite; one of her potential successors is also a woman, and GM’s board could soon be the third in the Fortune 500 to be majority-female. Bloomberg

    MOVERS AND SHAKERS: At JPMorgan Chase, CEO for card services Jenn Piepszak will become the company’s CFO, and current CFO Marianne Lake will become CEO of consumer lending. Lake’s move is fueling speculation that she will succeed Jamie Dimon as CEO. Telemedicine company Nurx appointed Varsha Rao as CEO. Fox News commentator Monica Crowley is reported to be joining the Treasury Department as its top spokeswoman. Nancy R. Gibbs, the former EIC of Time, was named faculty director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.

  • IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

    • Blame it on the cloud… IBM’s shares took a 4% dive Wednesday after it revealed a third consecutive quarter of declining revenue. The results raised concerns about its turnaround strategy, which has focused on cloud computing under CEO Ginni Rometty. Wall Street Journal

    • More on SV. Serena Williams revealed more about her investments through Serena Ventures yesterday, launching a new website that lists her investments in startups like Little Spoon and Daily Harvest. Marie Claire

    • Machine bias. The TSA has responded to criticism about its workers singling out black women for pat-downs, but it turns out the problem isn’t only human bias, but the machines themselves. The full-body scanners are prone to set off false alarms for most hairstyles worn by women of color. ProPublica

    • The blacklist. Diana Falzone, a former Fox News reporter who sued for gender discrimination and retaliation, writes about women who have been blacklisted from media after settling over experiencing sexual harassment. “The very same people who publicly applaud you for speaking up about bad behavior will never hire you into their own organizations because you are forever pegged as a whistleblower and a troublemaker,” one woman says. Vanity Fair

    Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe. Share it with a friend. Looking for previous Broadsheets? Click here.

  • ON MY RADAR

    Beyoncé’s black-intellectual Homecoming The Atlantic

    Losing a loved one changed the way actress Beanie Feldstein sees the world InStyle

    Notre Dame selects first female leprechaun ESPN

    The lipstick I wore to my divorce The Cut

  • QUOTE

    You have to lead by example, just do your thing as a grown woman and hope they’re watching. Amy Poehler on raising her sons as feminists