Best Buy's Shari Ballard Makes Top 50 Most Powerful Women List

Shari Ballard, president of Richfield-based Best Buy's Americas division, was named as one of FORTUNE Magazine's 2011 Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, ranking 46th and moving up two places from the 2010 list. The list was released Thursday morning.

Ballard is Michigan native who manages the U.S. portion of Best Buy's business—which generated 74 percent of the company's $50 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year—according to her profile on CNNMoney. She is also the seventh-youngest person on the list at age 45, according to a Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal article.

Irene Rosenfeld, CEO and chairwoman of Kraft Foods, ranked No. 1 on the list, followed by CEO and chairwoman of PepsiCo. Indra Nooyi, who was in the top spot in 2010.