TOP INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN THE WORLD

The top influential women in the world according to search volume, total social following, number of GIFs, number of charities they support and Wikipedia searches...

As a brand we are inspired by women every day and strive to empower women through self-love, both in our products and messaging. That’s why we have undertaken research to find out who the most influential women are around the world. From singer-songwriters to politicians, we believe every woman has the ability to inspire and influence in a positive way.

We have looked at the number of searches each person has received over the last year, how many followers they have across social media, the number of GIFs there are of each woman, the number of charities they support and finally the number of Wikipedia page views.

Ready to be inspired by some of the world's most influential women? Find out who came top in our index ranking below.

The top 100 influential women in the world

How the popularity of influential women has changed over time

According to our index, Kamala Harris is the most influential woman in Canada, with a total of five million Canadian Google searches, followed by Ariana Grande with 3.4 million Canadian Google searches.

Kamala and Ariana sit in different categories, with Kamala in the politics and policy category and Ariana in the media and entertainment category. Despite Kamala being more searched for, there is a significant difference in their social following, with Ariana Grande totaling 328.3 million followers across all platforms - 293.2 million more than Kamala Harris, who has 35.1 million followers.

Seven out of the top ten influential women are in the media and entertainment sector, with three exceptions being Kamala Harris, Queen Elizabeth II and Christine Lagarde who all come under the politics and policy category.

To create this index, we analyzed five key factors that play a part in what we consider to be an influential woman in the 21st century, then combined them into a weighted rank to reveal our top 100. You can find more detail on each factor below.

CANADA’S MOST SEARCHED FOR INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN HISTORY

Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris comes top with a staggering five million Google searches from Canada alone.

Pop sensation and songwriter, Billie Eilish is the second most searched for influential woman, with a total of 3.7 million Canadian searches. Third position goes to another talented singer, Ariana Grande who received over 3.5 million searches from Canada.

American actress Scarlett Johansson appears in the top 10 with 2.4 million Canadian Google searches.

It's both positive and encouraging to see a variety of women from different professions achieving in such high popularity through Google searches and providing inspiration for the next generation as influential women.

MOST POPULAR CATEGORIES

Media and entertainment is the most populated category for influential women, with 54 out of 100 women falling into this category. The likes of pop singers Cardi B, Olivia Rodrigo and Beyonce and actresses Halle Berry and Priyanka Chopra are just some of the influential women in history that appear in the media and entertainment category.

The second most populated category is sports, with 21 influential women from the top 100 in this category. Gold medalist swimmer Katie Ledecky, gymnast Simone Biles, and tennis champions Naomi Osaka and Serena and Venus Williams are just some of the influential women who sit within the sports category.

Politics and policy is the third most popular category with 15 women. Notable women fall into this category, such as Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.

MOST FOLLOWED INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

When it comes to social following, Instagram queen Ariana Grande takes the top spot with a staggering 328 million followers across all social platforms. 255 million of these are from Instagram alone, where Grande updates fans regularly with behind-the-scenes videos, sassy selfies, and song exclusives.

American actor and singer Selena Gomez takes second place with a total of 304 million followers on social media.

MOST ‘GIFABLE’ INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

American journalist Lisa Ling is the most ‘gifable’ influential woman in the index analysis, she has appeared in 38,371 GIFs in total. Following Lisa is TV personality Gayle King with 15,204 GIFs, and the third most ‘gifable’ influential woman is singer Ruth E. Carter, who appears in 12,829 gifs in total.

WOMEN WITH THE MOST WIKIPEDIA PAGE VIEWS

Wikipedia page views were another metric within our analysis, where we found that Kamala Harris was the influential woman who experienced the most page views, at 39 million in 2020.

Following Kamala Harris was singer songwriter Billie Eilish who gathered 13 million page views in 2020. Third is Scarlett Johansson with just under 9 million Wikipedia page views in 2020.

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Methodology and Sources

We looked at existing reports to find out the top influential women in the world, before analyzing the women across the different industries they work in. We gathered Google search data for Canada, number of followers on Instagram and Twitter, number of page views on Wikipedia for 2020, the number of charities the women support, as well as the number of GIFs.

These factors were combined into a weighted rank using min to max normalization, in order to provide us with an overall ranking. Data pulled July-September 2021. View the full dataset here.