The 25 Most Powerful People in The World

Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia was crowned the most powerful person in the world.

Forbes ranked the most powerful people in the world, and the 62 year old leader of the energy rich, nuclear power Russia has given the title of most powerful for the second year in a row.

To get to the list of 72 out of 7 billion people, Forbes used a multitude of criteria.

First was to check who has power over lots of people, such as Pope Francis who leads 1.2 billion Catholics, about 1/6th of the world’s population.

Then they go on to rank the financial resources of the person, Forbes says that “for heads of state we reference nominal GDP, while for CEOs, we measure their company’s revenues and market value. If a candidate is a billionaire — this year there are 29 – we also take that into consideration. In certain instances, like Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud (No. 8), we consider other valuable resources at the candidate’s disposal. In his case, a sizable portion of the world’s known oil reserves.”

Then they consider if the people is powerful in multiple spheres, because on this elite list, you have to be powerful in more than just one aspect.

Bill Gate for example is a billionaire, a philanthropist, and a technology advisor to the world’s number one software company.

The final way they rate the contenders is if the candidates are actively using their power.

This grants bonus points to people like Mark Zuckerberg, who can’t be voted out by the people.

The list of the top 25 out of the 72 they list is below, visit their website (linked above) for the complete list.

  1. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
  2. Barack Obama, President of the US
  3. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
  4. Pope Francis, Head of the Roman Catholic Church
  5. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
  6. Janet Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve System
  7. Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  8. Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank
  9. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Cofounders of Google
  10. David Cameron, Prime minister of the United Kingdom
  11. Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia
  12. Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
  13. Li Keqiang, Premier of China
  14. Carlos Slim Helu, Honorary chairman of América Móvil
  15. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
  16. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
  17. Francois Hollande, President of France
  18. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
  19. Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, Grand Ayatollah of Iran
  20. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil
  21. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric
  22. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
  23. Michael Bloomberg, CEO of Bloomberg
  24. Charles Koch and David Koch, CEO and EVP of Koch Industries
  25. Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple