Aliko Dangote, founder, Dangote group and the richest man in Africa has been named by Forbes magazine as the 64th most powerful person in the world.
The 56-year old Kano born multibillionaire is the only African on the first 70 meaning he is more powerful than all African heads of state, including Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan.
Dangote with interests in every profitable pie built his fortunes from diversified interests in cement, sugar, flour, salt, petrochemicals, oil and gas.
He along with Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle rated number 58 is the latest billionaire-entrepreneurs to join the list alongside 27 CEOs.
But who is the most powerful? Okay wait!: it is Vladimir Putin , Russian President who climbed one spot ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama, who held the title in 2012.
The Most Powerful People in the World list is an annual snapshot of the heads of state, financiers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs who truly rule the world.
It represents the collective wisdom of top FORBES editors, who consider hundreds of nominees before ranking the planet’s top 72 power-brokers – one for every 100 million people on Earth — based on their scope of influence and their financial resources relative to their peers. (See full methodology here).
This year’s list features 17 heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of some $48 trillion — including the three most powerful people, Putin, Obama and Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China. The 27 CEOs and chairs control over $3 trillion in annual revenues, and 12 are entrepreneurs, including new billionaires on the list, Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote (No. 64), founder of Dangote Group, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison (No. 58). Speaking of, this year’s class has 28 billionaires valued in excess of $564 billion.
Here, a quick peek at the Most Powerful People in the World 2013:
Newcomers: Among the 13 newcomers are Pope Francis (No. 4), Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee (No. 41), Volkswagen’s Martin Winterkorn (No. 49), South Korean President Park Geun-hye (No. 52), IBM CEO Virginia Rometty (No. 56), and Janet Yellen (No. 72), nominated by President Obama as the next leader of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Rosneft CEO and Putin confidant Igor Sechin (No. 60) and Jill Abramson (No. 68), the executive editor of the New York Times, make a return appearance after dropping of the list in years past.
He’s Not No. 1: This is the first year that Putin carries the crown. Obama has been on the top of the list for every year with the exception of 2010, when Hu Jintao, the former political and military leader of China, was No. 1.
Women Moving Up In Numbers: This year there are nine women on the list, representing 12% of the world’s most powerful — in stark contrast to being 50% of the world’s population. Both 2011 and 2012 featured six women leaders, and the inaugural list from 2009 included only 3 — or just 4.4%. Recently elected Park of South Korea joins the other female heads of state German Chancellor Angela Merkel No.5), Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff (No. 20)and de facto head of India Sonia Gandhi (No. 21). Two of the world’s most important NGO’s are run by women: Christine Lagarde (No. 35) leads the IMF and Margaret Chan (No. 59) steers the World Health Organization.
Billionaires: Worth a cumulative $564 billion. Sure they’re rich but many of these billionaires deserve special attention for their philanthropic work, including Warren Buffett (No. 13), Michael Bloomberg (No. 29), Li Ka-shing (No. 30), Charles and David Koch (No. 31), and Mohammed Ibrahim (No. 71).
Entrepreneurs Represent: There are 12 in total. As expected, many are headquartered on the West Coast: Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (No. 17), Mark Zuckerberg (No. 24), Elon Musk (No. 47), Ellison and Reid Hoffman (No. 65). Global entrepreneurial spirit spans from Japan’s Masayoshi Son (No. 45) and China’s Robin Li (No. 61) to Africa’s Dangote and Ibrahim.