Forbe's - The world's Most Powerful People, 2015 Edition

[Ulmita]

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Forbes: The World's Most Powerful People

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Forget about the 1%. The men and women who are featured on Forbes’ annual ranking of the World’s Most Powerful People are the 0.00000001% –the global elite whose actions move the planet. These heads of state, financiers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs truly run the world.


To compile the list, we considered hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe, and measured their power along four dimensions. First, we asked whether the candidate has power over lots of people. Pope Francis, ranked #4 on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics. Doug McMillon (#32), CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, employs 2.2 million workers.


Next we assessed the financial resources controlled by each person. Are they relatively large compared to their peers? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at measures like their company’s assets and revenues. When candidates have a high personal net worth, like the world’s richest man, Bill Gates (#6), we also took that into consideration. In certain instances, like the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (#14), we considered other valuable resources at the candidate’s disposal –like 20% of the world’s known oil reserves.


Then we determined if the candidate is powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 73 slots on our list – one for every 100 million people on the planet – so being powerful in just one area is often not enough. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways: Elon Musk (#38) has power in the auto business through Tesla Motors, in the aerospace industry through SpaceX, because he’s a billionaire, and because he’s a highly respected tech visionary.
Lastly, we made sure that the candidates actively used their power. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (#46) has near absolute control over the lives of the 25 million people who live in his country, and is known to punish dissent with death.

To calculate the final rankings, a panel of Forbes editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power, and those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score. Only the top 74 people (Brothers Charles and David Koch share the #29 spot) made the final cut.


Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged as the world’s most powerful person for the third year running. Putin continues to prove he’s one of the few men in the world powerful enough to do what he wants –and get away with it. International sanctions set in place after he seized Crimea and waged war-by-proxy in the Ukraine have kneecapped the Ruble and driven Russia into deepening recession, but haven’t hurt Putin one bit: In June his approval ratings reached an all-time high of 89%. In October, he bombed ISIS forces in Syria and then met face-to-face with President Assad, making the U.S and NATO look weak in the region, and helping rebuild Russian influence abroad.


The second most powerful person in the world also happens to be the most powerful woman: Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, jumps up from #5 last year to take the runner-up spot on the list. Merkel is the backbone of the 28-member European Union, and her decisive actions dealing with the Syrian refugee problem and the Greek credit crisis helped bump her up the list.


U.S. President Barack Obama fell one spot on this year’s list to #3. There’s no doubt that the United States remains the world’s greatest economic, cultural, diplomatic, technological and military power. But as Obama enters the final year of his presidency, it’s clear his influence is shrinking, and it’s a bigger struggle than ever to get things done. At home, his approval ratings are perpetually stuck under 50%; abroad, he’s outshined by Merkel in Europe, and outmaneuvered by Putin in the Middle East.


New members of the list include Dell CEO Michael Dell (#59); China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin (#68); newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (#69); billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn (#70); and U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump (#72).


Any ranking of the world’s most powerful people is going to be subjective, so we don’t pretend ours is definitive. It’s meant to be the beginning of a conversation, not the final word. So tell us what you think: Is the CEO of Amazon more powerful than the CEO of Apple or Facebook? Is ex-president Bill Clinton (#64) really more powerful than the current Prime Minister of Canada? Does someone like Donald Trump belong on the list at all? Who did we miss? What did we get wrong? Join the conversation by commenting below.

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	Rank	Name	Organization	Age
	#1	Vladimir Putin	Russia	63
	#2	Angela Merkel	Germany	61
	#3	Barack Obama	United States	54
	#4	Pope Francis	Roman Catholic Church	78
	#5	Xi Jinping	China	62
	#6	Bill Gates	Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	60
	#7	Janet Yellen	Washington, United States	69
	#8	David Cameron	United Kingdom	49
	#9	Narendra Modi	India	65
	#10	Larry Page	Google	42
	#11	Mario Draghi	European Central Bank	68
	#12	Li Keqiang	China	60
	#13	Warren Buffett	Berkshire Hathaway	85
	#14	Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud	-	79
	#15	Carlos Slim Helu	América Móvil	75
	#16	Francois Hollande	France	61
	#17	Jeff Bezos	Amazon.com	51
	#18	Ali Hoseini-Khamenei	Iran	76
	#19	Mark Zuckerberg	Facebook	31
	#20	Jamie Dimon	JPMorgan Chase	59
	#21	Benjamin Netanyahu	Israel	66
	#22	Jack Ma	-	51
	#23	Christine Lagarde	International Monetary Fund	59
	#24	Jeffrey Immelt	General Electric	59
	#25	Rex Tillerson	Exxon Mobil	63
	#26	Lloyd Blankfein	Goldman Sachs Group	61
	#27	Tim Cook	Apple	55
	#28	Akio Toyoda	Toyota Motor	59
	#29	Charles Koch	Koch Industries	80
	#29	David Koch	Koch Industries	75
	#30	Sergey Brin	Google	42
	#31	Li Ka-shing	CK Hutchison Holdings	87
	#32	Doug McMillon	Wal-Mart Stores	49
	#33	Jay Y. Lee	Samsung Group	47
	#34	Larry Fink	BlackRock	63
	#35	Rupert Murdoch	News Corp	84
	#36	Mukesh Ambani	Reliance Industries	58
	#37	Dilma Rousseff	Brazil	67
	#38	Elon Musk	Space Exploration Technologies Corp.	44
	#39	Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan	United Arab Emirates	67
	#40	Ban Ki-moon	United Nations	71
	#41	Shinzo Abe	Japan	61
	#42	Ding Xuedong	China	55
	#43	Park Geun-hye	South Korea	63
	#44	Michael Bloomberg	Bloomberg	73
	#45	Jim Yong Kim	World Bank	55
	#46	Kim Jong-un	North Korea	32
	#47	Igor Sechin	Rosneft	55
	#48	Ma Huateng	-	44
	#49	Abdel el-Sisi	Egypt	60
	#50	Haruhiko Kuroda	Japan	71
	#51	Masayoshi Son	Softbank	58
	#52	Enrique Pena Nieto	Mexico	49
	#53	Ali Al-Naimi	Saudi Arabia	80
	#54	Alexey Miller	Gazprom	53
	#55	Lakshmi Mittal	ArcelorMittal (ADR)	65
	#56	Robin Li	Baidu	46
	#57	Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi	Islamic State in Iraq and Syria	44
	#58	Hillary Clinton	United States	68
	#59	Michael Dell	Dell	50
	#60	John Roberts	United States	60
	#61	Satya Nadella	Microsoft	48
	#62	Stephen Schwarzman	Blackstone Group	68
	#63	Ginni Rometty	IBM	58
	#64	Bill Clinton	Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation	69
	#65	Mary Barra	General Motors	53
	#66	Bernard Arnault	LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton	66
	#67	Alisher Usmanov	Metalloinvest	62
	#68	Wang Jianlin	-	61
	#69	Justin Trudeau	-	43
	#70	Carl Icahn	Icahn Capital Management	79
	#71	Aliko Dangote	Dangote Group	58
	#72	Donald Trump	-	69
	#73	Margaret Chan	World Health Organization	68

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This is for shit and giggles. What do you guys think on those top 10? Mehhh why is the pope making it in top 10, i never got it. I also think India's PM should be couple of spots higher. Also, with with Mario Draghi making it #11...
Lastly i think Obama should be #1 or #2, definitely not 3rd.

[Annoying]

Pretty good for a subjective ranking, really. I think most of the world leaders could easily be jumbled around in some different orders, but it's pretty pointless to do that.

Beyond that, I think the tech moguls are a bit overstated, and the Bankers/News Moguls/Lobbyists are understated.

[Tennis]

Don't really see the value in this list.

[GennGreymane]

Obama cant be very powerful any more as he is basically about to leave office or as we call it, in his lame duck session.

Merkel being on this list is just more fuel for the fire of anti E.U.

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The reasoning they gave for Putin should actually be worrying. Even though their are huge issues now in Russia, he is popular as he is populist.

[Ulmita]

Obama cant be very powerful any more as he is basically about to leave office or as we call it, in his lame duck session.

Merkel being on this list is just more fuel for the fire of anti E.U.

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The reasoning they gave for Putin should actually be worrying. Even though their are huge issues now in Russia, he is popular as he is populist.

I would give Obama 1rst, Putin or Merkel 2nd.

The reason that Obama would get first is that besides that he runs world's greatest economy and military he displayed through the deal with Iran that diplomacy works. He averted a huge war and saved thousands of lives despite all the war hawks from inside, Israel and allies calling for a conflict. He stood strong on his opinions and he made it despite everyone vowing against that deal. This is raw power of diplomacy and power of a personal level (character).

I know that this might sound weird to some of you but i really like Obama.

[GennGreymane]

I would give Obama 1rst, Putin or Merkel 2nd.

The reason that Obama would get first is that besides that he runs world's greatest economy and military he displayed through the deal with Iran that diplomacy works. He averted a huge war and saved thousands of lives despite all the war hawks from inside, Israel and allies calling for a conflict. He stood strong on his opinions and he made it despite everyone vowing against that deal. This is raw power of diplomacy and power of a personal level (character).

I know that this might sound weird to some of you but i really like Obama.

Fair enough. I can respect the reasoning that you put, but I am looking at Forbes. Populists being powerful is dangerous. Also the article ignores the vice that China basically has on Russia.