Fortune labels GM CEO Mary Barra "most powerful woman in business"

The executive earned the title less than a month after taking her new position, succeeding Dan Akerson to become the first female CEO of a major global automaker. During her previous post as executive vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply chain, she was ranked 35th on the 2013 list.

“An electrical engineer who has spent her entire career at GM, the new CEO faces big challenges in the US, where market share is at a historical low and profit margins are below Ford’s, and Europe, where GM’s Opel brand has lost billions,” the report notes. “But companywide, profits are back, and Barra has the board’s approval to invest to make GM prosper again.”

Despite the achievement, Barra’s promotion has stirred controversy over gender discrimination in the form of pay discrepancies. FoxBusiness‘ Elizabeth MacDonald criticized GM for offering Barra a compensation package that was only “48 percent of the pay of GM’s outgoing male CEO who had no prior experience running a car company.”

The company has worked to downplay the discrimination claims, arguing that full details of her pay package–not yet fully disclosed–will contradict the accusations.

GM’s fourth-quarter financials demonstrated gradual growth, though not at the pace sustained by rival Ford.