New York ? Forbes magazine has rated German Chancellor Angela Merkel world’s most powerful woman for the third year in a row, beating a pair of U.S. officials and a host of business leaders.

The magazine, which ranks 100 most powerful women for the fifth time this year, takes into account their “public profile – calculated using press mentions – and financial heft.”

Number two is Sheila Bair, the 19th chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., praised by Forbes for trying “to stave off financial panic amid a worldwide credit crisis.”

Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, came in seventh, behind the CEOs of food and beverage multinational PepsiCo, U.S. health insurer Wellpoint, mining giant Anglo American, and Kraft Foods, while Queen Elizabeth II was ranked 58th this time.