With all the reports of a dearth of women in business, it’s easy to forget that there are female chief executives running behemoths like Pepsi and HP.

A New York-based analytics startup, PeekYou, has compiled a list of the most influential female chief executives.

The executives on the list span a variety of industries, from enterprise technology to retail. Given the amount of media attention paid to technology companies of late, it’s no surprise that Silicon Valley-based CEOs dominate the list.

At the top of the list is HP CEO Meg Whitman. Tasked with retooling HP, Whitman has garnered a great deal of media interest, fending off competition from Marissa Mayer, who recently assumes the top job at Yahoo.

The list reminds me of a conversation that unfolded at Box‘s recent conference, Boxworks. A panel of female executives, including Epiphany’s former CEO Karen Richardson and Drugstore.com’s former CEO Dawn G. Lepore, made the salient point that women are often brought on in times of transition.

That’s certainly true in HP’s and Yahoo’s case: All eyes are on Mayer and Whitman. Can they re-energize flat-lining companies with a visionary corporate strategy?

No pressure.

Every executive on the list was given a PeekScore ranking between one and ten. As the company explains, the higher the score, the “more important” they are on the web. To calculate the ranking, the company takes into account known presence and activity on the Internet, including: blogging, participation in social networks, friends, followers, readers, the amount of content created, and prominence in the news. It’s not disimilar from a service like Klout, which analyze web streams to calculate a person’s social media influence.

“The sequence of the list seems pretty consistent with the notoriety and public awareness of each of these esteemed women,” Michael Hussey, PeekYou’s CEO, told me. “The list beyond those two (Whitman and Mayer) was rather a tight race but the scores certainly appear accurate.”

Note: with the servers hit during Hurricane Sandy, the site has not yet been restored to full functionality.

Attendees of VentureBeat’s upcoming CloudBeat conference, November 28-29, will meet senior execs from both HP and Pepsi, both companies mentioned in PeekYou’s list. Rafal Los, Senior Security Strategist at HP, and Frank Edwards, Director of IT Strategy, PepsiCo are among the list of speakers. Learn more about CloudBeat here.

Check out the list of top female tech CEOs below — let us know what you think!

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According to the tech publication Wired, people are now being dismissed from job interviews because of a low Klout score.

Klout measures people’s “influence” across online social networks. But we’re not talking about a lowly social-media intern or entry-level PR staffer. We’re talking senior level marketing candidates.

Wired tells the story of a man with 15-years of experience who claims he was passed over for a vice president position at a Toronto marketing firm due to his low Klout score. “They hired a guy whose score was 67,” Sam Fiorella told Wired. His score was a low 34. After that failed interview, Fiorella focused on raising his score (it is now a 72) and says it has increased the number of job offers he has received.

If this is in fact a trend, it is terrifying and ill-advised for a number of reasons. Mr. Fiorella’s job is to plan social media campaigns, not be a company spokesman. One could argue that Fiorella might be better at his job if he spent all his time working for his client and not tweeting back-and-forth with digital divas. Can you no longer be good at your job without being an extremely public person?

Another interesting question raised by the story is why was it so easy for Fiorella to more than double his Klout score? Is he truly that much more influential six months later? Incorporating some of the wisdom from our comments, that would mean Fiorella could become more influential than Mark Zuckerberg.

h/t Betabeat

ClearStory Data raises seed funding: First up, ClearStory Data, which launched its first service today and raised an undisclosed seed funding round. The new startup helps businesses without access to statisticians combine and analyze private data, such as sales figures, with public data such as census reports, to make better businesses decisions. Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and several individual investors led the round. ClearStory is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and has five employees.

CityMaps nabs $2.5M: CityMaps, a service that maps out every business on the blocks around you, officially announced its first round of institutional funding. Dave Leyrer and Dave Levin led the $2.5 million dollar round. CityMaps is going after Google’s little tiny icons you can find on its maps that correspond to the type of business. Instead of small icons, CityMaps uses business names and logos (when available) to map out the businesses on each city block. The company is based in New York City and has a team of 18.

PeerIndex gets $3M in funding: Going up against social influence measurement service Klout, PeerIndex measures how much social influence you have online. Like Klout, it figures out who you influence and in what ways. Also like Klout, it gives you early access to products and services to try out so you can influence your friends to buy them. The London-based company snagged a $3 million first round of funding from Antrak Capital with participation from Tom Glocer, Ken Olisa, and Sherry Coutu.

Stormpath raises $1.5M: Stormpath, a startup that creates user security for apps, raised $1.5 million in seed funding. The company’s products help developers add “identity management systems,” or user log in systems, to any mobile application. The round was led by Flybridge Capital Partners and New Enterprise Associates, with participation from angel investors Andy Rachleff and Len Lehmann. Stormpath is based in San Mateo, Calif. and is run by a two-man team.

Slated grabs $2M in second round of funding: Getting backing for a film is not easy, which is why Slated decided to build a company to connect filmmakers with investors. The service is aimed at both film producers — who can list their film to get funding and exposure — and investors, who can look for projects to invest in. Slated announced today it has raised $2 million in its second round of funding from Slated co-founder Stephan Paternot, Barry Silbert, Logitech founder Daniel Borel, and other private investors. The company has seven employees.

Achieve Cards secures $12.5M: Achieve Card, which makes reloadable debit and credit cards for rebate programs and people without banks, announced today it has raised $12.5 million in its second round of funding from Escalate Capital Partners. The company offers financial services, such as direct deposit and online bill pay to people who don’t belong to a bank. Achieve Card is based in Austin, Texas, and was founded in 2009.