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. Pope Benedict XVI, ranked #5 on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics, or about 1/6th of the world’s population. Michael Duke (#17), CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, employs two million people.
Next we assessed the financial resources controlled by each person. Are they relatively large compared to their peers? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at measures like their company’s assets and revenues. When candidates have a high personal net worth –like the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helu (#11)– we also took that into consideration. In certain instances, like Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, we considered other valuable resources at the candidate’s disposal –like 20% of the world’s known oil reserves.
Then we determined if the candidate is powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 71 slots on our list – one for every 100 million people on the planet – so being powerful in just one area is often not enough. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (#16) has power because he’s a politician, because he’s a billionaire, because he’s a media magnate, and because he’s a major philanthropist.
Lastly, we made sure that the candidates actively used their power. Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (#3) scored points because he so frequently shows his strength — like when he jails protestors.
To calculate the final rankings, ten senior Forbes editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power, and those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score.
Any ranking of the world’s most powerful people is going to be subjective, so we don’t pretend ours is definitive. It’s meant to be the beginning of a conversation, not the final word. So tell us what you think: Is ex-president Bill Clinton (#50) really more powerful than the current Prime Minister of Russia (#61)? Does someone like the chief of the Internal Federation of Association Football (#69) belong on the list at all? Who did we miss? What did we get wrong? Join the conversation by commenting below.
Top 10
1. Barack Obama
(REUTERS/Larry Downing)President, United States of America Age: 51
The decisive winner of the 2012 U.S. presidential election on all counts: Obama took the popular vote, the electoral college and 7 out of 7 toss-up states. Now he gets 4 more years to push his agenda past weakened congressional Republicans. Still, he faces major challenges, including an unresolved budget crisis, stubbornly high unemployment and renewed unrest in the Middle East. But Obama remains the commander in chief of the world’s greatest military and head of the sole economic and cultural superpower—literally the leader of the free world.
2. Angela Merkel
(RAINER JENSEN/AFP/Getty Images)Chancellor, Germany Age: 58
The world’s most powerful woman is the backbone of the 27-member European Union and carries the fate of the euro on her shoulders. Merkel’s hard-line austerity prescription for easing the European debt crisis has been challenged by both hard-hit southern countries and the more affluent north, but it—and she—are still standing. Merkel has served as -chancellor since 2005, but one of her biggest challenges still lies ahead: bolstering her government’s sagging popularity before the 2013 German general election.
3. Vladimir Putin
(AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Presidential Press Service)President, Russia Age: 60
Reelected for a third 6-year term as president in March after a few years swapping posts with Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, Putin officially regains the power that no one believes he truly gave up. This October the ex-KGB strongman—who controls a nuclear-tipped army, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves—turned 60. That’s Russia’s retirement age, but who’s got the nerve to tell him to quit?
4. Bill Gates
(RAVEENDRAN/AFP/GettyImages)Cochair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Age: 57
The world’s second-richest man is worth $65 billion—and that’s after giving away more than $28 billion. Gates’s post-Microsoft mission includes eliminating many infectious and deadly diseases: By his own estimates, that could translate into 8 million lives saved by 2020. But the quintessential activist billionaire doesn’t stop there: Gates continues to persuade his peers to sign the “Giving Pledge,” promising to give away half their wealth or more.
5. Pope Benedict XVI
(REUTERS/Max Rossi)Pope, Roman Catholic Church Age: 85
How’s this for a job description? According to the doctrine of Papal Supremacy, the Pope enjoys “supreme, full, immediate, and universal power” over the souls of 1.2 billion Catholics around the world. They turn to the Vicar of Christ for the final word on life’s most personal decisions, including birth control, abortion, marriage and euthanasia. As the leader of Vatican City, he’s also a head of state. Of course, the pope faces dissent anyway—recently from “radical feminist” American nuns.
6. Ben Bernanke
(KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GettyImages)Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve Age: 59
Big Ben has been on a buying spree: In a third round of quantitative easing, the Fed is now snapping up $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion of Treasurys. Result: modest economic recovery and a near-record $2.9 trillion on the Fed’s balance sheet. The American economy’s “adult in the room” recently warned that there is only so much the Fed can do; politicians are the ones with the power to keep us from going over that fiscal cliff.
7. Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud
(AP Photo)King, Saudi Arabia Age: 88
The absolute monarch of the desert kingdom controls 20% of the world’s known oil reserves and guards Islam’s holiest cities. The Arab Spring didn’t shake the ruling family’s control of the kingdom, but out-of-control youth unemployment remains a threat. Aging Abdullah lost his second heir apparent in 2 years when his brother, Crown Prince Nayef, died in June; he’s been replaced by another brother, 76-year-old Crown Prince Salman, the former governor of Riyadh.
8. Mario Draghi
(Sean Gallup/Getty Images)President, European Central Bank Age: 65
With the euro lurching constantly from crisis to crisis, the European Central Bank is more important than ever. As chief banker of the world’s largest -currency area—the euro zone’s collective GDP is now more than $17.4 trillion—Draghi faces the Herculean task of trying to maintain financial unity across 17 countries. But if anyone can wrangle the interests of nations as diverse as Germany and Greece, it might be the man who navigated the minefield of Italian politics so deftly, he earned himself a nickname: “Super Mario.”
9. Xi Jinping
(Feng Li/Getty Images)General Secretary, Communist Party of China Age: 59
The man who will lead China for the next decade was recently promoted to the Communist Party’s top position; Xi also took over as chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission, putting him in control of the world’s largest army. His rise to power will be complete in March, when he takes over for Hu Jintao as president and head of state. Xi’s only half of a Chinese power couple: His wife, Peng Liyuan, is a superstar folk singer.
10. David Cameron
(Oli Scarff/Getty Images)Prime Minister, United Kingdom Age: 46
Two years into office, the Tory PM has gone from being the called the second coming of Margaret Thatcher to standing in the shadow of Europe’s new Iron Lady, Angela Merkel. Cameron has rejected the German Chancellor’s call to increase the EU budget and threatened to veto anything but a spending freeze. At home he faces a sustained economic downturn, a disillusioned electorate and rumblings from his own party over Britain’s future.
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