The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Business,
#701
S. Wayne Martin
#134378
Overall Influence
#702
Jeffrey J. Reuer
#132122
Overall Influence
Jeffrey Jon Reuer is an American business strategy scholar. He is the Guggenheim Endowed Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Go to Profile#703
David E. Pegg
#134435
Overall Influence
#704
Stephen Barth
#97902
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Stephen Barth is an American lawyer, professor, author, keynote speaker and entrepreneur. He is a professor of leadership and hospitality law at the Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership at the University of Houston. He is also the co-author of Hospitality Law 5th Edition and Restaurant Law Basics.
Go to Profile#705
David John Mckenzie
#134485
Overall Influence
#706
Jorge Haddock Acevedo
#70245
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Jorge Haddock Acevedo is a Puerto Rican engineer and academic administrator serving as the president of the University of Puerto Rico . On July 7, 2021, the Governing Board of the UPR unanimously requested his resignation and his term ended on July 31, 2021 .
Go to Profile#707
Jochen Wirtz
#135056
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
#708
Satoshi Kon
#44783
Overall Influence
1963 - 2010 (47 years)
was a Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist from Sapporo, Hokkaido, and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association . He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art University. He is best known for his acclaimed anime films Perfect Blue , Millennium Actress , Tokyo Godfathers , and Paprika , and the TV series Paranoia Agent . He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 on August 24, 2010.
Go to Profile#709
Marjane Satrapi
#36055
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Marjane Satrapi is a French-Iranian graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author. Her best-known works include the graphic novel Persepolis and its film adaptation, the graphic novel Chicken with Plums, and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.
Go to Profile#710
Yukio Fujiki
#135793
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
#711
Kristen Sosulski
#105261
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Kristen A. Sosulski is an American university business professor and administrator. She joined New York University Stern School of Business in 2011. She serves as the Executive Director for the Learning Science Lab and Clinical Associate Professor of Technology, Operations and Statistics. Sosulski teaches information systems courses including "Data Visualization", "Foundations of Statistics Using R", "R Programming for Data", "Programming in Python", "Projects in Programming", "Operations Management: Ops in NYC", "Operations in Panama: A man. A plan. A Canal. Panama.", “Dealing with Data”, and...
Go to Profile#712
Rudi Appels
#136092
Overall Influence
#713
Bobby J. Calder
#136202
Overall Influence
#714
Saras D. Sarasvathy
#136259
Overall Influence
#715
Mitch Kapor
#91940
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Mitchell David Kapor is an American entrepreneur best known for his work as an application developer in the early days of the personal computer software industry, later founding Lotus, where he was instrumental in developing the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. He left Lotus in 1986. In 1990 with John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore, he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and served as its chairman until 1994. In 2003, Kapor became the founding chair of the Mozilla Foundation, creator of the open source web browser Firefox. Kapor has been an investor in the personal computing industry, and supporter of social causes via Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center.
Go to Profile#716
Andrew S. C. Ehrenberg
#136516
Overall Influence
#717
William G. Pietersen
#86634
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Willie Pietersen is an international businessman, author, and professor at Columbia University. William Gerard Pietersen was born in East London, South Africa, on Sept. 24, 1937 to Willem Gerhardus DuPlessis Pietersen and Hester Jacomina Francina . He is six feet, four inches tall and of Dutch, German and French ancestry. Pietersen attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, where he earned a BA in law and economics and an LLB in law and was chairman of the Students Representative Council. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in England where he received an MA in jurisprudence.
Go to Profile#718
Keng Leng Siau
#136603
Overall Influence
#719
Mohamed Zairi
#136320
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Mohamed Zairi is a British academic and researcher in the field of total quality management and excellence management. Over a period of 35 years, he has been influencing Quality Management Thinking. He is also recognized as a luminary in the Global Quality Horizon. In addition to TQM and Excellence Management, Zairi has immense expertise in areas such as Performance Measurement, Business Process Management, Change Management, Innovation Management, Governance, and Service Improvement.
Go to Profile#720
Michael Harry Morris
#136737
Overall Influence
#721
Rene Wagenaar
#102463
Overall Influence
1954 - 2007 (53 years)
René Wijnand Wagenaar was a Dutch academic, and Professor of Information and Communication Technology at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of the Delft University of Technology, known for his work on Modular Network Design and shared service centers.
Go to Profile#722
Gregory F. Udell
#137168
Overall Influence
#723
Eugene Habecker
#61839
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Dr. Eugene B. Habecker is the President Emeritus of Taylor University and chairman of Christianity Today. Previously, Habecker served as the 30th president of Taylor University, as well as president of the American Bible Society. He is also the author of several books, two coauthored with his wife, Marylou Habecker. He was inaugurated in a ceremony on Friday, April 28, 2006, in Odle Arena on the Upland campus, only two days after a tragic fatal car accident involving several students and employees.
Go to Profile#724
Bent Tolstrup Christensen
#137677
Overall Influence
#725
Adolf Mehlich
#137711
Overall Influence
#726
Barbara W. Newell
#28834
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Barbara Warne Newell is an economist, career professor, and higher education administrator. Notably, she served as the tenth President of Wellesley College from 1972 to 1980 and was the first female chancellor of the State University System of Florida from 1981 to 1985.
Go to Profile#727
Rohit P. Deshpande
#137976
Overall Influence
#728
Sankar Sen
#104305
Overall Influence
Sankar Sen is a marketing academic. Sen earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry at Brandeis University in 1985, a master's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1988, and a doctorate in business administration at the Wharton School in 1993. He is the Lawrence and Carol Zicklin Chair in Corporate Integrity and Governance at the Baruch College Zicklin School of Business.
Go to Profile#729
Lothar H. Wieler
#60923
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Lothar Heinz Wieler is a German veterinarian and microbiologist who served as president of the Robert Koch Institute from 2015 to 2023. In this capacity, he advised the German Federal and State Governments on topics of public health, especially infection hazards, and on the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to Profile#730
Ruth Alas
#113687
Overall Influence
1960 - 2018 (58 years)
Ruth Alas was an Estonian management scientist. She was the head of the Department of Management of the Estonian Business School until her death. Alas wrote more than 100 articles and 23 textbooks in topics relating to management and business.
Go to Profile#731
Francis J. Yammarino
#138232
Overall Influence
#732
Joanne V. Creighton
#25338
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Joanne Vanish Creighton is an American academic who served as the 16th President of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, from 1996 to 2010. On August 10, 2011, the Haverford College Board of Managers named her interim President of Haverford College, replacing Stephen G. Emerson, who resigned.
Go to Profile#733
Roy R. Suddaby
#138466
Overall Influence
#734
Nigel Francis Piercy
#138786
Overall Influence
#735
Meir Statman
#138895
Overall Influence
#736
Stephen Glaister
#33713
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Stephen Glaister is Emeritus Professor of Transport and Infrastructure at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, where he was also director of the Railway Technology Strategy Centre.
Go to Profile#737
Richard Brooks
#70089
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Richard Brooks is a British investigative journalist and former tax inspector. He writes principally for Private Eye, is the author of books on accountancy and tax avoidance, and was a 16-year senior corporate tax inspector for HMRC. He is the joint winner of two Paul Foot Awards, an annual award for investigative or campaigning journalism.
Go to Profile#738
Charles Craig Manz
#139383
Overall Influence
#739
Stephen W. Barthold
#139398
Overall Influence
#740
Cheng‐few Lee
#139490
Overall Influence
#741
Joel A. C. Baum
#139524
Overall Influence
#742
Edgar E. Peters
#83409
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Edgar E. Peters , is an asset manager and writer on investment management topics. He is noted for his early contributions to the application of chaos theory and fractals to the financial markets. These works primarily dealt with fat tailed distributions originally discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot and expanded upon in Peters . These probability distributions are considered fractal because they are self-similar over different investment horizons once adjusted for scale.
Go to Profile#743
Peter Paul Carr
#139881
Overall Influence
#744
Charles J. Fombrun
#140176
Overall Influence
#745
J. David Cummins
#132548
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
John David Cummins is an American business economist, currently the Joseph E. Boettner Chair of Risk Management and Insurance at Temple University, formerly the Harry J. Loman Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and then also formerly President of American Risk and Insurance Association.
Go to Profile#746
Richard P. Dick
#140281
Overall Influence
#747
Qiang Ji
#140482
Overall Influence
#748
George Andrew Karolyi
#140800
Overall Influence
#749
Massimo Gaetano Colombo
#140951
Overall Influence
#750
Marcus Clauss
#141166
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
