Fininvest Chairman Marina Berlusconi is the only Italian on fortune magazine's list of the Top 50 most powerful women in business outside the United States.
This was the seventh year in a row that the eldest daughter of media baron and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi made the list, this year coming in at seventh place after placing
sixth in 2005 and ninth the year before.
Marina Berlusconi, who took over the helm of her father's chief holding company a year ago, was chosen for having helped to increase Fininvest's net profits fourfold in 2005 to 2.2 billion dollars.
Fininvest is one of Italy's biggest enterprises with an overall estimated value of 17 billion euros and an annual revenue in the neighborhood of five billion euros.
Its core activities today mostly focus on the media and entertainment. Its subsidiary Mediaset controls Italy's largest private television group, with three national channels and a profitable advertising arm Publitalia 80, while Medusa handles its cinema activities.
The holding company also controls the giant Italian publisher Mondadori, where Marina Berlusconi is also chairman, and owns the AC Milan soccer club.
The Mediolanum group, which is jointly controlled with the Doris group, handles the Berlusconi family's interests in insurance, financial and pension products.
Marina Berlusconi, 40, entered Fininvest at the age of 25. Although she had spent summers interning at its various subsidiaries since the age of 15, she was only introduced to the daily running of the business in her late 20s, after dropping out of a degree in politics and international
relations.
