Who are the members of this global elite and, more important, what is the nature of this group, how does it connect, and how is it changing? To help understand the answer to this question I compiled more than 6,000 names in a rough census, a snapshot of the tiny community of the most powerful people on the planet at this moment. Many are profiled or identified in the book. However, to give you a few illustrations from that list, here are 10 samples drawn from the roster of today’s superclass, prepared exclusively for NEWSWEEK and organized according to location, age, and profession:
Asia-Pacific (The source of 33 percent of the superclass) Fu Chengyu – CNOOC (China) Kim Jung Il – Leader (North Korea) William Ding Lei – NetEase (China) Ho Ching – Temasek (Singapore) Lakshmi Mittal – Arcelor Mittal (India) David Yonggi Cho – Yoido Full Gospel Church (South Korea) Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah – Hizbullah (Lebanon) Sonia Ghandi – National Congress Party (India) Lou Jiwei – China Investment Corp. (China) Prince Bandar Bin Sultan – National Security Council (Saudi Arabia)
European Union (28 percent) Mike Turner – BAE (U.K.) Josef Ackerman – Deutsche Bank (Germany) Alexei Miller – Gazprom (Russia) Pascal Lamy – World Trade Organization (France) Richard Branson – Virgin Group (U.K.) Silvio Berlusconi – Former prime minister (Italy) Peter Brabeck-Letmathe – Nestle (Switzerland) Josef Joffe – Die Zeit (Germany) Michele Alliot-Marie – Minister of the Interior (France) Bob Geldof – Musician (Ireland)
North America (21 percent) Arnold Schwarzenegger – State of California Ronald Sugar – Northrop Grumman Jeffrey Immelt – General Electric James Dimon – JP Morgan Robert Zoellick – World Bank Oprah Winfrey—Television personality, producer Indra K. Nooyi – PepsiCo Al Gore – Former vice president, Nobel Prize winner H. Lee Scott – Wal-Mart Gen. Mike Mullen – Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
Latin America (12 percent) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – President (Brazil) Lorenzo Mendoza Gimenez – Empresas Polar (Venezuela) Mario Molina – Nobel Prize winning chemist (Mexico) Moise Safra – Banco Safra (Brazil) Carlos Slim Helú – Telmex (Mexico) Andronico Luksic – Banco de Chile (Chile) Luis Alberto Moreno – Inter-American Development Bank (Colombia) Genaro Larrea Mota Velasco – Grupo Mexico SA (Mexico) Gustavo Cisneros – Cisneros Group (Venezuela) Shakira – Singer (Colombia)
Africa (5 percent) Aliko Dangote – Dangote Group (Nigeria) Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf – President (Liberia) Amr Khaled – Muslim preacher (Egypt) Cardinal Francis Arinze – Roman Catholic Church (Nigeria) Patrice Motsepe – African Rainbow Minerals (South Africa) Col. Muammar Kaddafi – Leader (Libya) Nelson Mandela – Former president (South Africa) Wangari Maathai – Nobel Prize winner (Kenya) Amre Moussa – Secretary-General, League of Arab States (Egypt) Odein Ajumogobia – Minister of State for Petroleum (Nigeria)
45 and Younger Janus Friis, 32 – Cofounder, Skype (Finland) Hiroshi Mikitani, 43 – Founder, Rakuten (Japan) Kalanidhi Maran, 44 – Chairman, Sun Network (India) Andrey Likhachev, 43 – CEO, Lenenergo (Russia) Mark Zuckerberg, 23 – CEO, Facebook (USA) Yang Huiyan, 26 – Majority shareholder, Country Garden (China) Oleg Deripaska, 40 – Chairman, RUSAL (Russia) Richard Li, 42 – Chairman, PCCW Limited and Pacific Century Group (Hong Kong) Pierre Omidyar, 39 – Founder, eBay (USA) Lorenzo Mendoza Gimenez, 43 – CEO, Empresas Polar (Venezuela)
46-65 Mukesh Ambani, 50 – Chairman, Reliance Industries (India) Zhou Xiaochuan, 60 – Governor, People’s Bank of China (China) Vladimir Popovkin, 51 – Commander, Russian military (Russia) José Manuel Barroso, 52 – President, European Commission (Spain) Kemal Dervis, 59 – Administrator, UNDP (Turkey) Steve Case, 50 – Former chairman and CEO, AOL (USA) Rene Obermann, 45 – CEO, Deutsche Telekom (Germany) Rana Talwar, 60 – Chairman, Sabre Capital Worldwide (India) Guillermo Ortiz Martinez, 60 – Governor, Bank of Mexico (Mexico) Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, 51 – Chairman, Kingdom Holding (Saudi Arabia)
65 and Older Osamu Suzuki, 78 – Chairman, Suzuki Motor Corp. (Japan) Reinhard Mohn, 87 – Stakeholder, Bertelsmann (Germany) Julio Mario Santo Domingo, 84 – SAB Miller (Colombia) Bernard Ecclestone, 78 – President and CEO, Formula One (UK) Sheikh Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, 79 – Emir, Kuwait (Kuwait) Michael Bloomberg, 66 – Mayor, New York City (USA) Carlos Slim Helú, 68 – Chairman and CEO, Telmex (Mexico) Akira Mori, 71 – CEO, Mori Trust (Japan) KP Singh, 76 – CEO, DLF Universal Limited (India) Sumner Redstone, 84 – Owner, CBS Corporation and Viacom (USA)
Political/Military: George W. Bush Vladimir Putin Hu Jintao Gordon Brown Angela Merkel Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Nicolas Sarkozy Ban Ki-Moon Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Sonia Gandhi
Business/Energy: Jeffrey Immelt – CEO of General Electric Rex Tillerson – CEO of Exxon Mobil Ratan Tata – CEO, Tata Group Ali Al-Naimi – Saudi Arabian oil minister Tianpu Wang – CEO of Sinopec Alexei Miller – CEO of Gazprom Jeroen van der Veer – CEO of Royal Dutch Shell H. Lee Scott – CEO of Wal-Mart Indra K. Nooyi – CEO of PepsiCo Lakshmi Mittal – Chairman and CEO, Arcelor Mittal
Finance: Zhou Xiaochuan – Governor of People’s Bank of China Ben Bernanke – Head of U.S. Federal Reserve Jean-Claude Trichet – President of EU Central Bank Khalifa Mohammad Al-Kindi – Chairman of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Ken Lewis – Chairman, CEO of Bank of America Stephen Green – CEO of HSBC Jamie Dimon – Chairman, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Lloyd Blankfein – CEO of Goldman Sachs Group John Varley – CEO of Barclays Baudouin Prot – CEO of BNP Paribas
Media/Academia/Religion/Celebrities/Philanthropy: Rupert Murdoch – Chairman, CEO of New Corp. Sheik Al-Thani – Chairman of Al Jazeera Pope Benedict XVI Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – Supreme Leader, Iran Sergei Brin and Larry Page – Co-founders of Google Bill Gates – Gates Foundation, Microsoft Warren Buffet – Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire philanthropist Jerry Yang – CEO of Yahoo! Mark Thompson – Director-General of BBC Tenzin Gyatso – Dalai Llama
