• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 5, 2017

Women are finding a seat at the top of the executive ladder, with one third appearing on the Forbes Top 50 CMOs list released Wednesday.

In addition to women, the list is heavy with tech, telecom, and internet companies. In fact, these companies account for 40% of the Top 50. Financial services follows with 18%.

Overall, for better or for worse, the majority of Forbes Top 50 CMOs have been in their roles for three years or less.

This year, Forbes based its rankings on social media data, analyzing the percentage of the impact of a brand on content and awareness, as well as the number of times that people mention the CMO in relation to their brand on Twitter, blogs, websites and in news stories. It was also important to look at the CMO's network and their connections to the marketing community.

The top CMOs are personally invested in social, with 45 of the Top 50 on Twitter and 49 on LinkedIn. The Top CMOs are more active on social, with twice as many LinkedIn connections, 2.5 times as many Twitter followers, and twice as many posts as the average big-brand CMOs.

Keith Weed at Unilever is at the top as the most influential CMO. Ranking at No. 2 is Antonio Lucio at HP. Phil Schiller at Apple, Linda Boff at GE, and Leslie Berland at Twitter round out the top five, respectively.

Tech companies also include Microsoft CMO Chris Capossela at No. 11; Adobe CMO Ann Lewnes at No. 15; SAP CMO Maggie Chan Jones at No. 15; Facebook's Gary Briggs at No. 21; and LinkedIn's Shannon Stubo at No. 28, among others. Google is not on the list.