15. Mukesh Ambani
Title: Chairman, managing director of Reliance Industries
Country: India
Age: 58
Mukesh Ambani took over as the chairman of Reliance Industries when his father, the company's founder, Dhirubhai Ambani, died in 2002. The enormous industrial conglomerate generates $61 billion in annual sales from its interests in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail, and, more recently, telecommunications.
Ambani is the richest person in India with a personal fortune of over $23 billion. He owns a 27-story Mumbai mansion that cost $1 billion to build.
And if Ambani's projections for India's economy prove correct, expect that net worth to soar. Four years ago, Ambani predicted that India would grow from a $1.4 trillion economy in 2011 to a $30 trillion economy by 2030 — a bullish estimate considering that India's GDP today stands at $2.2 trillion.
14. Benjamin Netanyahu
Title: Israeli prime minister
Country: Israel
Age: 66
Reelected this year as the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu recently compared the Middle East to "Game of Thrones." It isn't a game he's always played well — disputes over the Iran deal and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have left US-Israeli relations at a crisis point. But Israel has remained relatively stable during a time of turmoil throughout the Middle East, and Netanyahu has dominated his country's politics like few Israeli leaders.
Overall, many say that Netanyahu has done a good job of boosting Israel's economy and putting the country at the forefront of technological and medical advances. Even so, the fallout over the Iran nuclear deal, and his strained relations with Washington, don't fare well for his legacy.
13. Robin Li
Title: Baidu CEO
Country: China
Age: 46
There's a trio of internet kings in China, collectively known as "BAT" — Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent. For his part, Robin Li commands the market in internet search as the chairman and CEO of Baidu, China's Google equivalent.
As with Google, Li's Baidu is constantly investing in the future. In May, Baidu announced a partnership with Daimler, the maker of Chinese Mercedes-Benz, to provide software for their cars that allows drivers to access content from their smartphones. And in conjunction with BMW, Baidu is building a self-driving car prototype that it hopes to reveal by year-end.
Li, whose net worth is upwards of $11 billion, also said this year that his company would invest $3.2 billion in "online to offline" services, which allow mobile users to perform traditionally non-digital tasks such as buying movie tickets, hailing cabs, and finding deals at restaurants.
12. Park Geun-hye
Title: President of South Korea
Country: South Korea
Age: 63
South Korean President Park Geun-hye is the first female leader of her country — an especially impressive accomplishment considering South Korea has the highest level of gender inequality in the developed world. Her election generated the nation’s highest turnout rate in 15 years.
Park has the difficult but critical responsibility of diffusing threats from the ever-combative North Korea. Last year, she tried to get her mercurial neighbors to the north to abandon their nuclear-weapons program by promising humanitarian aid and an investment in its weak industries, but to no avail. Park has flexed her muscles by testing missiles that can reach all of North Korea, but Kim Jong-un hasn't blinked, and hasn't quashed any nuclear ambitions.
11. Ban Ki-moon
Title: UN secretary-general
Country: South Korea
Age: 71
As the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon leads its 193 international member nations in fighting for peace and safety worldwide. Throughout his tenure, Ban has worked to support unstable countries with UN peacekeeping efforts, promote sustainable development to lessen climate change and poverty, and empower women worldwide. His position gives him the authority to determine how and where the UN uses its resources and allows him to facilitate conversations between world powers.
Most recently, Ban led the 70th annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, one with the highest attendance in years. He adopted new UN goals for the next 15 years, with a focus on eradicating poverty and preserving the planet.
10. Ali Khamenei
Title: Supreme Leader of Iran
Country: Iran
Age: 76
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been the ultimate authority in Iran since 1989, is openly opposed to Western influence in both his country and the broader Middle East. A hardliner even within Iran's clerical regime, Khamenei has long championed the slogan "Death to America," and he has sought to position Tehran as both a geopolitical and ideological enemy of the US and Israel.
After over 18 months of negotiations, Khamenei conditionally agreed to a landmark nuclear deal reached with six world powers this past July. The deal outlines Iran's promise to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the US and its partners lifting economic sanctions. The agreement is set to open Iran's economy to outside investment and has generally raised the prestige of Khamenei's government, which is quickly shaking its status as one of the world's pariah states.
9. King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud
Title: King of Saudi Arabia
Country: Saudi Arabia
Age: 79
Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud took the throne as king of Saudi Arabia in January after the death of his half brother. His short tenure hasn't been without controversy: Eight of the 12 surviving sons of the country's founding monarch reportedly support a coup to oust King Salman and replace him with his younger brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, a sign tensions are at a high within the royal family.
But as the leader of Saudi Arabia, King Salman wields incredible influence over the Middle East and his country's massive oil reserves. Even with oil at historically low prices, Saudi Arabia — the world's largest oil exporter — continues to ramp up production to depress prices and protect its global market share, despite the negative impact it has on the global oil economy.
8. Wang Jianlin
Title: Chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group
Country: China
Age: 61
Wang Jianlin is one of the richest self-made billionaires in the world, claiming a fortune of$33.5 billion. The real-estate mogul, who served in the Chinese military from 1970 to 1986 before going into business, has his hands in dozens of sectors and his name on hundreds of companies, including the yacht maker Sunseeker and the US-based AMC Entertainment. His wealth has nearly doubled after last year's initial-public-offering listings of his companies Wanda Commercial Properties — China's largest property developer — and Wanda Cinema Line, cementing his title as the richest person in China.
In early 2015, Wang purchased a 20% stake in the Spanish soccer club Atlético Madrid for $52 million, adding athletics to his already diversified portfolio of more than 200 luxury hotels, movie theaters, shopping malls, and karaoke bars across China. Later this year he continued his investments in the global sports industry by purchasing the World Triathlon Corporation, parent company of the iconic Ironman triathlon, for $650 million.
7. Jack Ma
Title: Founder and CEO of Alibaba
Country: China
Age: 51
The second-richest person in China, Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma broke records with the e-commerce company's $25 billion initial public offering in 2014 — the world’s largest ever. Post-IPO, however, Alibaba's good fortune began to slip. The company's shares dropped throughout 2015 and were down 25% through November, most likely in part because of China's slowing economy and concerns over counterfeiters using the company's platform.
Ma, who has a net worth of more than $25.6 billion, isn't worried, though. Alibaba remains dominant in one of the world's biggest markets, and he says the West's concern over China's economic slowdown is an "overreaction." In fact, Ma believes China is in the midst of an economic transition — one Alibaba will no doubt help facilitate — and will come out stronger.
6. Li Ka-shing
Title: Chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings
Country: China
Age: 87
Despite humble beginnings, business magnate Li Ka-shing has become the wealthiest man in Hong Kong, with a net worth estimated at more than $21 billion. After his father died of tuberculosis, Li dropped out of school at age 16 to support his family, working in a factory making plastic flowers. Six years later he opened his own factory, the predecessor to what's known today as CK Hutchison Holdings, a vast business empire with interests in real estate, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, and technology. A savvy investor, Li with his venture-capital fund Horizon Ventures has backed companies like Facebook, Skype, Spotify, and the egg-replacement food startup Hampton Creek.
This year Li reorganized his business affairs under two new listed companies, one entity for property holdings and another for all other global assets. The move is most likely in preparation to hand over control of his empire to his son, but the 87-year-old doesn't have any plans of slowing down quite yet.
5. Shinzo Abe
Title: Prime minister of Japan
Country: Japan
Age: 61
Three years into his second term as prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe continues to craft bold plans for his country's future. At the forefront is a desire to bring the excitement and innovation of Silicon Valley to Japan to jump start the country's fading tech sector. In a recent visit to the US, Abe met with tech titans like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to learn "how we can take Silicon Valley's ways and make them work in Japan." This plan comes on top of "Abenomics," the three-pronged approach the prime minister implemented to boost Japan's economy upon starting his second term in 2012.
On the same visit to the US in April, Abe also became the first Japanese prime minister to address a joint session of US Congress, which he used to push forward talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that would bring together nations including Australia, the US, Japan, Mexico, and Vietnam.
4. Jiang Jianqing
Title: Chairman, executive director of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Country: China
Age: 62
Jiang commands Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest commercial bank with $3.5 trillion in assets. Before starting as a teller at ICBC in 1984, he toiled on farms and in coal mines during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. When he took over as president in 2000 (he was tapped as chairman five years later), the bank was almost insolvent; today it generates $45 billion in annual profit, more than twice as much as JPMorgan Chase, the largest US commercial lender.
Jiang has also been an alternate member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee — the country’s top political governing body — since 2002. In 2014 he became the first Chinese banker to serve as cochairman of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
3. Narendra Modi
Title: Indian prime minister
Country: India
Age: 65
Now in his second year as prime minister of India, Narendra Modi is introducing initiatives to improve the lives of the 1.2 billion people who make up the world’s largest democracy. In May, he announced plans to reform and modernize the government and business sectors by implementing a uniform sales tax and boosting foreign direct investment to India.
Modi, the second-most followed political leader on Twitter behind Barack Obama, is also pushing India to integrate with the digital world. He believes tech innovation holds the key to lifting India out of poverty, and he traveled to Silicon Valley in September seeking advice and help from tech executives at companies like Google and Facebook.
2. Vladimir Putin
Title: Russian president
Country: Russia
Age: 62
Approval ratings for Vladimir Putin, Russia's president and former prime minister, reached an all-time high in October: 89.9%. After seizing Crimea last year in the wake of the Ukrainian Revolution, Putin is determined to resurrect Russia as a superpower.In the past year, he's supported a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and launched a military operation in support of Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Unlike with most Western heads of state, Putin's control over Russia is subject to few constitutional checks and balances.
At the annual UN meeting in late September, Putin criticized Obama, asserting that US interventions have backfired in the Middle East, creating a haven for extremists and terrorists. Shortly after, Putin launched the Russian air campaign to target Islamic forces in Syria and weaken rebellion against the country’s president. The airstrikes are costing Russia an estimated$2.5 million a day, and are quickly escalating tensions with Western powers.
1. Xi Jinping
Title: President of the People's Republic of China
Country: China
Age: 62
Xi Jinping, the general secretary of China’s Communist Party, has been labeled by many the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. Considering the domestic grip he’s secured in just three years since becoming president of the world’s largest country — nearly 1.4 billion people — it’s hard to argue. Xi holds at least 10 titles governing the world superpower (some of which he created), overseeing everything from the military and the internet to the economy.
That economy has stalled, and the nation’s stock market endured a tumultuous summer requiring a bailout that may have topped $200 billion. Still, China’s growth in recent years puts it in elite company, and by one measure its economy even eclipses that of the US, according to the IMF.
Xi has fulfilled a vow to wage an extensive and controversial anticorruption campaign within the country. He has investigated hundreds of thousands of people and locked away some high-ranking party officials for life — his former political enemies among them.