Top 100 Global Thinkers — 2012
Top 100 Global Thinkers — 2012
1. AUNG SAN SUU KYI, THEIN SEIN
For showing that change can happen anywhere, even in one of the world’s most repressive states.
Member of parliament, president | Burma
2. MONCEF MARZOUKI
For keeping the ideas of the Arab Spring alive.
President Tunisia
3. BILL and HILLARY CLINTON
For still thinking about tomorrow.
Former president New York
Secretary of state Washington
4. SEBASTIAN THRUN
For revving up the robot-car revolution.
Computer scientist | Palo Alto, Calif.
5. BILL and MELINDA GATES
Co-chairs, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Seattle
6. MALALA YOUSAFZAI
For standing up to the Taliban, and everything they represent.
Student | Pakistan
7. BARACK OBAMA
For redrawing America’s global footprint.
President | Washington
8. PAUL RYAN
For doubling down on the debt crisis.
Congressman | Washington
9. CHEN GUANGCHENG
For envisioning a China with the rule of law.
Legal activist | New York
10. DAVID BLANKENHORN, NARAYANA KOCHERLAKOTA, RICHARD A. MULLER
For changing their minds.
Activist, economist, physicist | New York, Minneapolis, Berkeley, Calif.
11. JAMES HANSEN
For sounding the alarm on climate change, early and often.
Director, Goddard Institute for Space Studies | New York
12. ANGELA MERKEL
For refusing to give up on the dream of a united Europe.
Chancellor | Germany
13. EHUD BARAK, BENJAMIN NETANYAHU
For forcing the world to confront Iran’s nuclear program.
Defense minister, prime minister | Israel
13. EHUD BARAK, BENJAMIN NETANYAHU
For forcing the world to confront Iran’s nuclear program.
Defense minister, prime minister | Israel
14. MEIR DAGAN, YUVAL DISKIN
For begging to differ.
Former Mossad director, former Shin Bet chief | Israel
14. MEIR DAGAN, YUVAL DISKIN
For begging to differ.
Former Mossad director, former Shin Bet chief | Israel
15. BEN BERNANKE, SCOTT SUMNER
For keeping the world’s largest economy afloat.
Chairman, Federal Reserve | Washington
Economist | Waltham, Mass.
15. BEN BERNANKE, SCOTT SUMNER
For keeping the world’s largest economy afloat.
Chairman, Federal Reserve | Washington
Economist | Waltham, Mass.
17. ABRAHAM KAREM, WILLIAM MCRAVEN
For leading the drone revolution.
Aeronautical engineer | Lake Forest, Calif.
Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command | Tampa, Fla.
17. ABRAHAM KAREM, WILLIAM MCRAVEN
For leading the drone revolution.
Aeronautical engineer | Lake Forest, Calif.
Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command | Tampa, Fla.
18. AHLEM BELHADJ
For demanding that women have a say in the new Arab world.
President, Tunisian Association of Democratic Women | Tunisia
19. RIMA DALI, BASSEL KHARTABIL
For insisting, against all odds, on a peaceful Syrian revolution.
Activists | Syria
19. RIMA DALI, BASSEL KHARTABIL
For insisting, against all odds, on a peaceful Syrian revolution.
Activists | Syria
20. MARIO DRAGHI
For saving Europe when the politicians couldn’t (or wouldn’t).
President, European Central Bank | Germany
21. GEORGE SOROS
For telling Europe the ugly truth.
Philanthropist, investor | New York
22. JOYCE BANDA
For stepping in and up to fix a broken country.
President | Malawi
23. ED MORSE
For proving that energy independence is no fantasy.
Economist | New York
24. THOMAS PIKETTY, EMMANUEL SAEZ
For making the graph that Occupied Wall Street.
Economists | France; Berkeley, Calif.
24. THOMAS PIKETTY, EMMANUEL SAEZ
For making the graph that Occupied Wall Street.
Economists | France; Berkeley, Calif.
25. NADIM MATTA
For showing that everyone needs a 100-day plan, not just presidents.
President, Rapid Results Institute | Stamford, Conn.
26. AI WEIWEI
For turning his confinement into art — and protest.
Artist | China
For investing in the Middle East when others would not.
Managing director, International Monetary Fund | Washington
28. AHMET DAVUTOGLU, RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN
For leading from the front.
Foreign minister, prime minister | Turkey
28. AHMET DAVUTOGLU, RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN
For leading from the front.
Foreign minister, prime minister | Turkey
29. WILLEM BUITER
For warning of the Grexit.
Economist | Britain
30. ELON MUSK
For putting his money where his mind is.
Entrepreneur | Los Angeles
31. MARISSA MAYER, SHERYL SANDBERG
For having it all.
President and CEO, Yahoo!, COO, Facebook | Silicon Valley, Calif.
31. MARISSA MAYER, SHERYL SANDBERG
For having it all.
President and CEO, Yahoo!, COO, Facebook | Silicon Valley, Calif.
32. ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER
For arguing that women can’t have it all — and explaining why we’d be better off admitting it. Political scientist | Princeton, N.J.
33. SALMAN RUSHDIE
For defending free speech as if his life, and ours, depended on it.
Writer | New York
34. PAUL KRUGMAN
For wielding his acid pen against austerity.
Economist | Princeton, N.J.
35. NOURIEL ROUBINI
For being not just gloomy, but right.
Economist | New York
36. SHAI RESHEF
For giving the world a shot at the Ivy League.
Founder, University of the People | Pasadena, Calif.
37. DAPHNE KOLLER, ANDREW NG
For working to make education a human right.
Computer scientists | Palo Alto, Calif.
37. DAPHNE KOLLER, ANDREW NG
For working to make education a human right.
Computer scientists | Palo Alto, Calif.
38. DICK and LIZ CHENEY
For keeping the neocon flame alive.
Former vice president, director of Keep America Safe | Washington
38. DICK and LIZ CHENEY
For keeping the neocon flame alive.
Former vice president, director of Keep America Safe | Washington
39. CONDOLEEZZA RICE
For updating Rockefeller realism for the Tea Party era.
Former secretary of state | Palo Alto, Calif.
40. EUGENE KASPERSKY
For decoding the secrets of cyberwar.
Computer security expert | Russia
41. SIMA SAMAR
For defending Afghanistan’s women, even as the world looks away.
Chair, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission | Afghanistan
42. DEBBIE BOSANEK, WARREN BUFFETT
For demanding that a secretary not pay more than her billionaire boss.
Administrative assistant, investor | Omaha, Neb.
42. DEBBIE BOSANEK, WARREN BUFFETT
For demanding that a secretary not pay more than her billionaire boss.
Administrative assistant, investor | Omaha, Neb.
43. CHARLES MURRAY
For showing that conservatives have no monopoly on family values.
Author | Burkittsville, Md.
44. ANDREW MARSHALL
For thinking way, way outside the Pentagon box.
Military futurist | Washington
45. ALEXEY NAVALNY
For finding the Kremlin’s weak spot.
Activist blogger | Russia
46. THOMAS MANN, NORMAN ORNSTEIN
For diagnosing America’s political dysfunction.
Political scientists | Washington
46. THOMAS MANN, NORMAN ORNSTEIN
For diagnosing America’s political dysfunction.
Political scientists | Washington
47. MOHAMMAD FAHAD AL-QAHTANI
For putting Saudi Arabia on trial.
Activist | Saudi Arabia
48. ABDULHADI, MARYAM, and ZAINAB AL-KHAWAJA, NABEEL RAJAB
For insisting that free speech is a right, no matter where you live.
Activists | Bahrain
49. HARUKI MURAKAMI
For his vast imagination of a globalized world.
Novelist | Japan
50. ROBERT KAGAN
For writing the one book Obama and Romney could agree on.
Author | Washington
51. NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA
For showing Africa how to break the resource curse.
Finance minister | Nigeria
52. MARTIN FELDSTEIN
For getting the eurocrisis right two decades ago.
Economist | Cambridge, Mass.
53. MOHAMED EL-ERIAN
For charting the economy’s new new normal.
CEO, Pimco | Newport Beach, Calif.
54. YU JIANRONG
For daring to be specific about how to change China.
Director, Center for the Study of Social Problems | China
55. MICHAEL SANDEL
For revealing the moral limits of markets.
Political philosopher | Cambridge, Mass.
56. JOHN BRENNAN
For bringing the war on terror to the real enemy al Qaeda.
White House counterterrorism advisor | Washington
57. JAMEEL JAFFER
For insisting that assassination is not an American value.
Director, ACLU Center for Democracy | New York
58. BJORN LOMBORG
For taking the black and white out of climate politics.
Director, Copenhagen Consensus Center | Czech Republic
59. HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
For filling the leadership vacuum in the Middle East.
Emir | Qatar
60. HEW STRACHAN
For asking the generals, What are you doing with all those guns?
Military historian | Britain
61. HUSAIN HAQQANI, FARAHNAZ ISPAHANI
For pushing tough love for their troubled country.
Former Pakistani officials | Washington
61. HUSAIN HAQQANI, FARAHNAZ ISPAHANI
For pushing tough love for their troubled country.
Former Pakistani officials | Washington
62. ESTHER DUFLO
For relentlessly testing our assumptions about poverty.
Economist | Cambridge, Mass.
63. KIYOSHI KUROKAWA
For daring to tell a complacent country that groupthink can kill.
Doctor | Japan
64. DARON ACEMOGLU, JAMES ROBINSON
For showing it’s politics that makes states fail.
Economist, political scientist | Cambridge, Mass.
64. DARON ACEMOGLU, JAMES ROBINSON
For showing it’s politics that makes states fail.
Economist, political scientist | Cambridge, Mass
65. PAUL ROMER
For dreaming big about how to reinvent cities.
Economist | New York
66. ALEXANDER MACGILLIVRAY
For defending free speech in the Twitter era.
General counsel, Twitter | San Francisco
67. RUCHIR SHARMA
For dusting the gold off the term «emerging markets.»
Managing director, Morgan Stanley | New York
68. CHINUA ACHEBE
For forcing Africa to confront its demons.
Author | Providence, R.I.
69. MA JUN
For dreaming of blue skies over China — and working to make them.
Environmentalist | China
For outsmarting Vladimir Putin, one tree at a time.
Environmentalist | Russia
71. RAND PAUL
For telling America to come home.
Senator | Washington
72. SRI MULYANI INDRAWATI
For making the Indonesian Miracle, and taking it international.
Managing director, World Bank | Washington
73. WANG JISI
For telling us what China really thinks about America.
Dean, School of International Studies, Peking University | China
74. RAJ CHETTY
For following the numbers — wherever they lead.
Economist | Cambridge, Mass.
75. ASGHAR FARHADI
For his eloquent case for coexistence.
Filmmaker | Iran
76. ADELA NAVARRO BELLO
For telling the world about the drug war’s brutal reality.
Journalist | Mexico
77. NITISH KUMAR
For turning around India’s poorest state.
Chief minister, Bihar | India
79. ELIOT COHEN
For writing the GOP’s foreign-policy playbook in 2012.
Political scientist | Washington
80. RAGHURAM RAJAN
For saving India from its politicians.
Economist | India
81. PATRICE MARTIN, JOCELYN WYATT
For redesigning the war on poverty.
Directors, IDEO.org | San Francisco
81. PATRICE MARTIN, JOCELYN WYATT
For redesigning the war on poverty.
Directors, IDEO.org | San Francisco
82. ROBERT D. KAPLAN
For putting geography back on the map.
Chief geopolitical analyst, Stratfor | Stockbridge, Mass.
83. KAI-FU LEE
For building the new Chinese Internet.
CEO and chairman, Innovation Works | China
84. BETH NOVECK
For demanding open government, then creating it.
Law professor | New York
85. RADOSLAW SIKORSKI
For telling the truth, even when it’s not diplomatic.
Foreign minister | Poland
86. PANKAJ MISHRA
For charting the intellectual rise of the East — without the West.
Writer | Britain
87. TARIQ RAMADAN
For telling us that Islam and democracy can go together — just when it matters.
Scholar | Britain
88. JÜRGEN HABERMAS
For asking, what is Europe anyway?
Philosopher | Germany
89. RICKEN PATEL
For proving web activism doesn’t have to begin and end with a click.
Executive director, Avaaz | New York
90. VIVEK WADHWA
For a fresh idea in the U.S. immigration debate.
Entrepreneur | Menlo Park, Calif.
91. DANAH BOYD
For showing us that Big Data isn’t necessarily better data.
Social media researcher | New York
92. SLAVOJ ZIZEK
For giving voice to an era of absurdity.
Philosopher | Slovenia
93. MARTHA NUSSBAUM
For shining a light on the West’s dark corners of intolerance.
Law and ethics professor | Chicago
94. JOHN COATES
For exposing how biology affects Wall Street.
Neuroscientist | Britain
95. JONATHAN ZITTRAIN
For staring down the Internet’s enemies.
Law professor | Cambridge, Mass.
96. LUIGI ZINGALES
For reminding us what conservative economics used to look like.
Economist | Chicago
97. VIVIANE REDING
For demanding that Europe’s women have a seat at the table.
Vice president, European Commission | Belgium
98. JONATHAN HAIDT
For revealing the psychology of partisanship.
Psychologist | New York
99. PETER BEINART
For diagnosing the «crisis of Zionism.»
Journalist | New York
100. SANA SALEEM
For insisting that free speech is not blasphemy.
Blogger | Pakistan