Marissa Mayer: Google's chic geek - This self-proclaimed "girly girl" runs one of Google's fastest-growing services

The ranks of bona fide international celebrities in technology is rather small, if by "bona fide" you mean people whose fame has something to do with actual technological acumen and achievement. But now let's draw up a list of all the female bona fide international tech celebrities: 1. Marissa Mayer. End of list. Mayer was the first female engineer and among the first 20 people hired at Google. She was a major force behind its user interface. For 10 years, she ran its core search business while the company demolished such competitors as AltaVista, Lycos, and Excite. Now, at age 37, she's in charge of one of Google's hottest bunch of technologies: location and local services. She oversees more than 1000 engineers and product managers who are refining Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Earth and also developing the technology behind applications that may revolutionize the mobile Web as much as the search engine transformed the original one.