The World’s Most Powerful and Influential People
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. 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. 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.
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