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Wednesday, November 02, 2011

The World's Most Powerful: The 70 People Who Matter

The World's Most Powerful: The 70 People Who Matter
The World's Most Powerful: The 70 People Who Matter


Obama become the first. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin came second in this annual ranking, followed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

President Barack Obama(No. 1) regained the top spot on Forbes' third annual ranking of "The 70 Most Powerful People In The World" (p. 99), having lost it last year to Chinese President Hu Jintao (No. 3). Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is No. 2, followed by Jintao, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (No. 4) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-chair Bill Gates (No. 5). Rounding out the Top 10 are Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud(No. 6), Pope Benedict XVI (No. 7), U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke (No. 8), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (No. 9) and UK Prime Minister David Cameron (No. 10).

Among the 14 newcomers to the list are Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (No. 14), OPEC President Rostam Ghasemi (No. 32), IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde (No. 39), Apple CEO Tim Cook (No. 58), New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson (No. 64) and House Speaker John Boehner (No. 67).

Four factors were taken into account to select the 70 people that matter from the 7 billion people on the planet: how many people they have power over; the financial resources they control; if they have influence in more than one sphere; and how actively they wield their power to change the world. Case in point is Bill Gates, who is changing the world again, through vaccines. The issue's cover feature, "The Power To Save Lives" (p. 88),explores Gates' vaccine-based giving and plan to eradicate disease. He's saving millions of lives and helping to solve the global population problem.

Forbes asked an elite group of experts – including TED's Chris Anderson, Teach For America's Wendy Kopp, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, among others – to each pick seven people who matter most to them. Among the ten people who fell off the list this year are Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Julian Assange and Oprah Winfrey. For the full list, complete methodology and associated features, visit: www.forbes.com/power.

New by Forbes


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