Top 25 Most Powerful Women of 2014

Forbes today announced its 10th anniversary of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (No. 1) topping this year's list for the fourth consecutive year and nine times in total.She is followed by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at No. 2 and Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Melinda Gatesonce again at No. 3. Dilma Rouseff, President of Brazil, falls two spots to No. 4. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, moves up two spots to No. 5.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra (No. 7) is the subject of the Forbes cover story, "GM's Power Shift." In her first interview since the GM safety crisis erupted, Barra discusses her conversations with parents of the victims of GM's faulty ignition switches, all the work that lies ahead to repair GM's reputation and how she is using the crisis to accelerate much needed culture change inside GM. The story comes just days before GM is scheduled to release the findings of its internal investigation of what went wrong and what it plans to do to ensure it never happens again.

Moira Forbes, Forbes President and Publisher of Forbes Woman, said, "As we mark the 10th anniversary of publishing the World's 100 Most Powerful Women list, these impressive women from around the world continue to make a dramatic, lasting impact on our global footprint and in all aspects of our lives."

Members of the 2014 ranking represent women in 8 categories: technology, politics, business, finance, media, entertainment, philanthropy and NGOs, as well as billionaires. Finance was broken out from business as a new category this year. To determine the rank within each category as well as overall rank on the list of 100, Forbes applied four metrics: money, media, impact and spheres of influence.

The list features nine heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $11.1 trillion with 641 million citizens -- including the No. 1 Power Woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 28 corporate CEOs control $1.7 trillion in annual revenues. Eighteen of the women on the list founded their own companies or foundations, including the youngest self-made billionaire on the list, Sara Blakely, 43. There are 13 billionaires valued in excess of $81 billion. The 100 women on the list have a combined social media footprint that exceeds 812 million followers.

Among the 18 newcomers on this year's list are U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chair Janet Yellen (No. 2); Elvira Nabiullina (No. 72), Gov., Bank of Russia; Arundhati Bhattacharya (No. 36), Chair, State Bank of India; Renee James (No. 37), Intel;Lucy Peng (No. 53), Alibaba; Samantha Power (No. 63); Adena Friedman (No. 69), Nasdaq; Patricia Harris (No. 80), Bloomberg Philanthropies; Yao Chen (No. 83), actress; Judith Faulkner (No. 84); Shuli Hu (No. 87); Gwynne Shotwell (No. 90), SpaceX; Fatima Al Jaber (No. 94), Al Jaber group; Folorunsho Alakija (No. 96), billionaire; and Lila Tretikov (No. 99), Wikipedia.

AOL's Makers series has featured 12 of the women featured on the Forbes list. Learn their incredible stories by watching their videos at the corresponding links below.

Hillary Clinton

Sheryl Sandberg

Susan Wojcicki

Oprah Winfrey

Marissa Meyer

Meg Whitman

Ursula Burns

Nancy Pelosi

Ellen DeGeneres

Angela Ahrendts

Arianna Huffington

Diane von Furstenberg