2011 Most Influential Women in Wireless

Welcome to the 2011 FierceWireless Most Influential Women in Wireless list. If you have been a FierceWireless reader for the past few years, you may remember our annual Women in Wireless feature, in which Fierce editors tracked the top female stars in the wireless industry (click here to see the 2010 list, here for the 2009 list and here for 2008). This year we have taken a slightly different tactic with our annual feature. Instead of profiling 10 different women every year, we are now ranking the top 15 women in the industry based on what we believe to be their "influence" in the industry.

What exactly is "influence," and how do we measure it? We picked women based on the role they play in their company and in the wireless industry. Women who made this list were selected for their accomplishments, their technical savvy, their leadership and, perhaps most importantly, their ability to sway the industry -- whether that's through their technology choices, their work on standards bodies or their ability to negotiate tough deals.

In the traditionally male-dominated world of telecom, it's not always easy to find women in top-ranking positions. But that is changing. Over the past year we've seen more women advance to positions of power than ever before.

I believe that Fierce's editors have compiled a list that encompasses some of the best and brightest female executives in the business. To be clear, this list is a compilation of women who we think are movers and shakers in the U.S. wireless industry. We realize that wireless is a global business, and many of our candidates work for international companies, but we selected women based on their influence here in the United States.

15.Heidi Lehman
CEO, founder, MoxieQ

14.Kathleen O'Brien Ham
VP, federal regulatory affairs, T-Mobile USA

13.Peggy Johnson
EVP and president of global market development, Qualcomm (NAS: QCOM)

12.Rima Qureshi
senior vice president, head of CDMA, Ericsson (NAS: ERIC)

11.Padmasree Warrier
CTO, Cisco (NAS: CSCO)

10.Stephanie Tilenius
vice president of commerce and payments, Google (NAS: GOOG)

9.Laura Chambers
general manager of mobile, PayPal (NYS: PAY)

8.Christy Wyatt
software and services product management, Motorola Mobility (NYS: MMI)

7.Jo Harlow
executive vice president, smart devices, Nokia (NYS: NOK)

6.Cher Wang
co-founder, chairwoman, HTC

5.Mary Dillon
President and CEO, U.S. Cellular

4.Hope Cochran
CFO, Clearwire (NAS: CLWR)

3.Vonya McCann
vice president, government affairs, Sprint Nextel (NYS: S)

2.Marni Walden
vice president, chief marketing officer, Verizon Wireless (NYS: VZ)

1.Kris Rinne
senior vice president, architecture and planning, AT&T (NYS: T)

This article originally published here. Get your wireless industry briefing here.

At the time thisarticle was published The Motley Fool owns shares of QUALCOMM and Google. The Fool owns shares of and has created a bull call spread position on Cisco Systems. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Google, Cisco Systems, and AT&T. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2011 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.