US President Obama Tops Forbes' 70 Most Powerful List

Obama tops Forbes' 70 most powerful list

The Nation

US President Barack Obama regained the top spot on Forbes' third annual ranking of "The 70 Most Powerful People In The World", after losing the title to Chinese President Hu Jintao (No. 3) last year.

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), US 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", 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.

As seen on www.forbes.com/power, seven Chinese make it to the list. Aside from Hu Jiabao, there are Premier Wen Jiabao (14), People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (15), Secretary of the Commission for Political and Legislative Affairs Zhou Yongkang (29), China Investment Corp Chairman Lou Jiwei (33), Baidu CEO Robin Li (42) and First Secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Party Xi Jinping (69).

-- The Nation 2011-11-03