Forbes has released a list of 'America's Most Innovative Leaders' with only one of them being a woman — and it quickly sparked backlash online forcing the publication to admit it 'blew it' with the article.

The controversial list was published online Friday, naming 99 men, such as tech CEO's Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, as innovative leaders. One problem with the list was the lone female at spot 75, Ross CEO Barbara Rentler, who didn't even get a picture in the publication.

Backlash ensued quickly on social media, with many people shaming the publication for not realizing the gender bias apparent in the Forbes list.

Problematic: Forbes released a list ranking the 'America's Most Innovative Leaders' on Friday. It included CEOs like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg

Oversight: There was only one female included on the list of 100 leaders, Ross CEO Barbara Rentler, whose picture wasn't even included online

Frustrated: The backlash on Twitter was quick, with some people pointing out how Rentler's picture was accessible on Ross' website

Investment collective company #Angels shared the Forbes list on its Twitter page and called it an 'embarrassment' for the publication while also explaining why its methodology of composing the list was flawed.

'This is embarrassing, @forbes. One woman on a list of 100 most innovative leaders,' the tweet read. 'The methodology — limiting “leaders” to US CEOs of $10bn market cap cos, weighting media perception and social following — just compounds existing biases. Do better, Forbes.'

Forbes claimed its list was not compiled by a group of editors sitting in a room.

Instead, the publication explained it was created by ranking CEOs with a greater than $10 billion in market value of the companies 'innovation premium'. Also, the publication took into account the CEOs' performance and their reputation in media.

'We believe that a leader’s ability to successfully drive innovation largely boils down to something we call innovation capital, a multifaceted set of characteristics that allows the leader to acquire and effectively deploy the human and financial resources required to take a risky and novel idea and turn it into an innovation with impact,' Forbes explained in an article shared after the list.

Critics, though, pointed out that these sets of data points should raise flags for the staff at Forbes about the gender bias prevalent in America among CEOs.

Currently, women represent only 5 per cent of CEOs in the S&P 500, which makes their chances of making a list with these specific characteristics slim.

'At first I thought maybe they had a men’s and women’s list,' Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar tweeted following the release of the ranking.

Frustrated: Investment collective company #Angels shared the Forbes list on its Twitter page and called it an 'embarrassment'

Not good: People online were shocked Forbes would consider printing a list about 'innovative' leaders and only include one female

Bad look: The publication received a number of critiques online following the publication of its list on Friday

Fix this! Author Anand Girdharadas noted there were two Stanleys included in the list, meaning the Stanleys outnumbered the number of women featured

Sarcastic: Most people thought there was an obvious flaw to how Forbes decided to select the 100 people for its list

Author Anand Giridharadas noted a sad fact about the list, writing: On @Forbes's list of America's 100 "Most Innovative Leaders," there are twice as many men named Stanley as there are women of any name. And there are only two Stanleys.

'That's right: 99 of America's 100 most innovative leaders are men, says @Forbes.'

Another person wrote: 'So grateful to @Forbes for finding 1 woman and 99 men (sarcasm). Women must certainly be missing the 'innovative' gene with their little non innovative brain and all.'

Perhaps one of the most scathing reviews towards the list came from journalist Moira Forbes, publisher of ForbesWomen and great-granddaughter to B.C. Forbes who founded the publication.

'As someone who has dedicated her career to breaking down systemic barriers for women at all levels, I too was disheartened when I read our list of “America’s Most Innovative Leaders,' she wrote in a tweet.

Included with the tweet was her own op-ed about the main problems with the most recent list published by Forbes.

Disheartened: Moira Forbes, publisher of ForbesWomen and great-granddaughter to founder B.C. Forbes, also expressed her disappointment in the list online

Shameful: One issue people took with the list was that no one in Forbes thought it was a problem to include 99 men out of 100

Clapping back: There were some people who challenged the notion women deserved to be on the list, but people were quick to point out other female innovative leaders in America

She wrote: 'Rather than spotlighting the most dynamic minds in business, it perpetuated damaging and misleading stereotypes.'

People online had their own suggestions of women they believed deserved a spot on the list of innovative leaders. Suggestions included IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson.

There was so much backlash from the list that it forced Forbes Chief Content Officer Randall Lane to address the situation on Monday.

'We blew it,' he wrote in a tweet. 'Now we’re doing what journalists do: figuring out how this happened and learning from it.'

An op-ed released by Lane revealed the methodology to compiling the list was 'flawed'. This inspired him to start a taskforce within the publication to prevent future oversights from happening.

'Women, as we all know, are poorly represented at the top of the largest corporations (just 5% of the S&P 500) and fare even worse among growing public tech companies. In other words, for all our carefully-calibrated methodology, women never had much of a chance here,' he wrote.

Lane never addressed why Rentler, the list's only woman, did not have her picture included in the article like the other male 'innovative leaders'.

The list is still live on Forbes' site, but the publication has vowed to use a taskforce to investigate the issue and prevent it from happening in the future.