Chinese President Hu Jintao has been named the most powerful person in the world by Forbes, ahead of US President Barack Obama who is ranked second. Forbes said unlike his Western counterparts, Hu, head of the world's largest army in size, can "divert rivers, build cities, jail dissidents and censor Internet without meddling from pesky bureaucrats, courts."
Chinese President Hu Jintao has been named the most powerful person in the world by Forbes, ahead of US President Barack Obama who is ranked second. Forbes said unlike his Western counterparts, Hu, head of the world's largest army in size, can "divert rivers, build cities, jail dissidents and censor Internet without meddling from pesky bureaucrats, courts."
President of People's Republic of China
Powerful People #1
He is the paramount political leader of a nation with a population of 1.3 billion and which recently surpassed Japan to become the world's second-largest economy. China also has the highest foreign exchange reserves.
President of the United States
Powerful People #2
He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009. He went on to attend law school, where he became the first African—American president of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.
King of Saudi Arabia
Powerful People #3
Saudi Arabia has world's largest crude oil reserves and two holiest sites in Islam. King Abdullah assumed the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on August 1, 2005, on the death of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz. He was Crown Prince to King Fahd from 1982 to 2005.
Prime Minister of Russia
Powerful People #4
Vladimir Putin became Boris Yeltsin's fifth Prime Minister in 17 months in 1999 and the next year, he went on to become the President of the Russian Federation when Yeltsin left office. He was re-elected with a landslide victory in 2004. After he stepped down in 2008, Putin was made the Prime Minister by the present President, Dmitry Medvedev.
Powerful People #5
Pope Benedict XVI (born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) succeeded John Paul II and became the 265th Pope on May 7, 2005. After a long career as a professor of theology at different universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and cardinal in 1977.
Chancellor of Germany
Powerful People #6
Angela Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany. She has been the chairperson of the Christian Democratic Party since 2000. She was elected the President of the European Council in 2007 and chaired the G-8 summit, only the second female politician to do so.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Powerful People#7
David Cameron is the present and the youngest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is the leader of the Conservative Party and his coalition government with the Liberal Democrats is the first coalition government since the second World War.
Chairman of Federal Reserve
Powerful People #8
Ben S Bernanke began a second term as chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 1, 2010. Bernanke also serves as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the System's principal monetary policy-making body. He originally took office as Chairman on February 1, 2006.
Powerful People #9
President of the Indian National Congress Party
Sonia Gandhi is the President of the Indian National Congress Party. She is also the Chairperson of the Coordinating Committee of the ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance.
Sonia Gandhi was born in Italy on December 9, 1946. After her early education, she attended a foreign language school where she studied English, French and Russian.
Sonia Gandhi was first elected a Member of Parliament from the Amethi parliamentary constituency in 1999, following which she became Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. In the 2004 General Elections, she led the electoral campaign of her Party which secured the largest number of seats. This enabled the Congress Party to form a coalition government.
Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Powerful People #10
Bill Gates and Melinda Gates work together to expand opportunity to the world's most disadvantaged people by collaborating with grantees and partners. In 1975, Gates left Harvard University in his junior year to focus on Microsoft, the company he founded with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
Governor of People's Bank of China
Powerful People #11
Born in 1948, he graduated from Beijing Chemical Engineering Institute and received Ph.D from Tsinghua University.
President of Russia
Powerful People #12
Dmitry Medvedev became the President of Russia by winning the election with 71% vote in 2008. Incidentally, he had never held an elective office before 2008.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation
Powerful People #13
News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in six industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.
Prime Minister of Italy
Powerful People #14
Silvio Berlusconi, one of Italy's richest men with a net worth of $6.5 billion, won a third term as Prime Minister in 2008. His business empire spans from media, advertising and insurance to food and construction. He also owns football club AC Milan.
President of European Central Bank
Powerful People #15
Since 1 January 1999 the European Central Bank (ECB) has been responsible for conducting monetary policy for the euro area - the world's largest economy after the United States.
President of Brazil
Powerful People#16
Dilma Rousseff is the first woman President of Brazil. She was a part of the guerrilla group that fought against military dictatorship in 1964. She then formed the Democratic Labour Party.
CEO of Apple
Powerful People #17
Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976. Apple is a leading company in the consumer technology world. Steve also co-founded and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which created some of the most successful animated films including “Toy Story”, “A Bug's Life”, “The Incredibles”,” and "Cars and Ratatouille”. Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in 2006 and Steve now serves on Disney's board of directors.
Prime Minister of India
Powerful People #18
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was born on September 26, 1932, in a village in the Punjab province of undivided India. His academic career took him from Punjab to the University of Cambridge, UK, where he earned a degree in Economics in 1957. Dr. Singh followed this with a D. Phil in Economics from Nuffield College at Oxford University in 1962.
In 1971, Dr Singh joined the Government of India as Economic Advisor in the Commerce Ministry. This was soon followed by his appointment as Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance in 1972. Among the many Governmental positions that Dr. Singh has occupied are Secretary in the Ministry of Finance; Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission; Governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Advisor of the Prime Minister; and Chairman of the University Grants Commission.
In what was to become the turning point in the economic history of independent India, Dr. Singh spent five years between 1991 and 1996 as India's Finance Minister. In his political career, Dr. Singh has been a member of India's Upper House of Parliament (the Rajya Sabha) since 1991, where he was Leader of the Opposition between 1998 and 2004. Manmohan Singh was sworn in as Prime Minister on 22nd May after the 2004 general elections and took the oath of office for a second term on 22nd May 2009.
President of France
Powerful People #19
Nicolas Sarkozy is the President of France, who has been nicknamed as 'hyper-president'. In his office, Sarkozy has been active to cut taxes and cut down the public sector.
US Secretary of State
Powerful People #20
On January 21, 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as the 67th Secretary of State of the United States. Secretary Clinton joined the State Department after nearly four decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, and Senator.
Chairman of Telmex
Powerful People #21
Carlos Slim Helú is a Mexican business magnate, and the chairman of Telmex. He has interests in many companies in the fields of communications, technology, retailing, and finance.
Co-founder and President of technology of Google
Powerful People#22
Sergey Brin, a native of Moscow, received a bachelor of science degree with honors in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park. It was at Stanford where he met Larry Page and worked on the project that became Google. Together they founded Google Inc. in 1998.
Co-founder and president of products at Google
Powerful People#22
Larry Page was Google's founding CEO and grew the company to more than 200 employees and profitability before moving into his role as president of products in April 2001. While in the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, Larry met Sergey Brin, and together they developed and ran Google, which began operating in 1998.
Mayor of New York city
Powerful People #23
Michael R. Bloomberg is the 108th Mayor of the City of New York. He attended Johns Hopkins University and went on to receive an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before founding Bloomberg LP, he worked with Salomon Brothers.
Prime Minister of Israel
Powerful People#24
Benjamin Netanyahu was elected the Prime Minister in the first direct election in 1996 and served till 1999. Then he served as the business consultant to Israeli hi-tech firms before returning to politics in 2002. Netanyahu was re-elected as the Prime Minister in 2009.
CEO of Wal-Mart
Powerful People#25
Under Mike's leadership, the company's international business became a fast-growing part of Wal-Mart's overall operations. Since joining Wal-Mart in 1995, Mike has led the logistics, distribution and administration divisions as well as Wal-Mart US. Mike graduated from Georgia Tech with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering.
Chairman & Managing Director of RIL
Powerful People #34
Mukesh Ambani is a chemical engineer from University Institute of Chemical Technology, University of Mumbai (earlier University of Bombay). He has pursued MBA from Stanford University, USA. Mukesh D. Ambani joined Reliance in 1981. He initiated Reliance's backward integration journey from textiles into polyester fibres and further into petrochemicals, petroleum refining and going up-stream into oil and gas exploration and production.
Chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal
Powerful People #44
Lakshmi Mittal founded Mittal Steel Company (formerly the LNM Group) in 1976 and guided its strategic development, culminating in the merger with Arcelor, agreed in 2006, to found the world's largest steelmaker.
Chairman of Tata Sons
Powerful People #61
Ratan N Tata has been the Chairman of Tata Sons, the promoter company of the Tata group, since 1991. He is also the chairman of the major Tata companies, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Tea, Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels and Tata Teleservices. During his tenure, the group's revenues have grown nearly 12-fold. Ratan Tata also serves on the board of directors of Fiat SpA and Alcoa.
