Benjamin Netanyahu
There are nearly 7.4 billion humans on planet Earth, but these 20 men and women make the world turn. 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. Next we assessed the financial resources controlled by each person. Then we determined if the candidate is powerful in multiple spheres.
Lastly, we made sure that the candidates actively used their power. To calculate the final rankings, we ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power, and those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score. This year’s list comes at a time of rapid and profound change, and represents our best guess about who will matter in the year to come. Here are the 20 most powerful people in the world.
Jamie Dimon
Prime Minister, Israel
Ali Hoseini-Khamenei
CEO, JPMorgan Chase
Carlos Slim Helu
Grand Ayatollah, Iran
Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud
Chair, Grupo Carso
Warren Buffett
King, Saudi Arabia
Jeff Bezos
CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
Theresa May
CEO, Amazon
Li Keqiang
Prime Minister, U.K.
Mario Draghi
Premier, China
Mark Zuckerberg
President, European Central Bank
Narendra Modi
CEO, Facebook
Larry Page
Prime Minister, India
Bill Gates
President, Alphabet
Janet Yellen
Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Pope Francis
Chair, Federal Reserve
Xi Jinping
Pope, Roman Catholic Church
Angela Merkel
General Secretary, Communist Party Of China
Donald Trump
Chancellor, Germany
President, U.S.A.