Margaret C. Meg, Whitman

She grew up in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N.Y. When Whitman entered Princeton University, she planned a career in medicine, but she became an economics major after a summer job selling advertising for a campus publication. She graduated with an economics degree in 1977 and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School two years later. Whitman joined Procter & Gamble, later working for the consulting firm Bain & Co., Walt Disney, Stride Rite Shoes, Florists' Transworld Delivery (FTD), and Hasbro. At Hasbro she was responsible for marketing Playskool and Mr. Potato Head brands. Since joining eBay in1998 as president and CEO, Whitman has helped turn it into a major Internet presence, visited by some seven million people daily. On paper at least, Whitman is a multi-billionaire and one of the richest woman CEOs in the world, She is married to Griffith R. Harsh IV, a neurosurgeon. .