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,
#801
Andreas Herrmann
#146365
Overall Influence
#802
C. William Thomas
#107689
Overall Influence
C. William Thomas is an American accountant and currently the Jeb Bush Professor of Accounting at Baylor University, and is also a published author, currently in 482 libraries.
Go to Profile#803
David Coghlan
#146584
Overall Influence
#804
Ken Hill
#48903
Overall Influence
1937 - 1995 (58 years)
Ken Hill was an English playwright and theatre director. Ken Hill was a protégé of Joan Littlewood at Theatre Workshop. He was known for his chaotic musicals on the tiny stage of the old Theatre Royal Stratford East, Theatre Workshop's home in Stratford, London, but he also had hits in the West End and abroad. Among them were The Invisible Man and the original stage version of Phantom of the Opera, which inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber to create his musical blockbuster of the same title.
Go to Profile#805
F. Wolfgang Schnell
#44541
Overall Influence
1913 - 2006 (93 years)
F. Wolfgang Schnell was a German professor of applied genetics and plant breeding. He belonged to the most prominent scientists in his field during the second half of the 20th century. Curriculum vitae F. Wolfgang Schnell attended high school in Celle, Halle, and Leipzig. After having passed the final examinations in 1931 he served his apprenticeship in agriculture on a farm near Hamburg . Thereafter he studied agricultural sciences in Berlin, Munich, and Göttingen . Military service , the last part of the war as SS-Hauptsturmführer in the Waffen-SS, he became commander of the schwere SS-Artillerie Abteilung 503, attached to the III.
Go to Profile#806
Anthony G. Hopwood
#146727
Overall Influence
#807
Masaaki Kotabe
#146852
Overall Influence
#808
Oliver Dowden
#87069
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Oliver James Dowden is a British politician and the current Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. A member of the Conservative Party, he is also Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office and has been the Member of Parliament for Hertsmere since 2015.
Go to Profile#809
Frédéric Godart
#78572
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Frédéric Godart is a French sociologist and researcher who is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD in Fontainebleau . His work is on the dynamics of creative industries, and fashion and luxury. He is co-editor-in-chief of Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts. Godart's 2012 book is called Unveiling Fashion: Business, Culture, and Identity in the Most Glamorous Industry.
Go to Profile#810
Ginni Rometty
#108353
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty is an American business executive who was executive chairman of IBM after stepping down as CEO on April 1, 2020. She was previously chairman, president and CEO of IBM, becoming the first woman to head the company. She retired from IBM on December 31, 2020, after a near-40 year career there. Before becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she first joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981 and subsequently headed global sales, marketing, and strategy. While general manager of IBM's global services division, in 2002 she helped negotiate IBM's purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers' IT consulting business, becoming known for her work integrating the two companies.
Go to Profile#811
Max von Zedtwitz
#147482
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Max von Zedtwitz is a scholar of global R&D and innovation with a focus on emerging countries. He is Managing Director of GLORAD, a research network with locations in China, the United States, Brazil and Europe, and professor at universities in Europe and China.
Go to Profile#812
Brad M. Barber
#147511
Overall Influence
#813
Tobias Scheytt
#127863
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Tobias Scheytt is a German Professor of Management Accounting and Control, Head of the Department of Management Accounting and Control , and Head of the Centre of Postgraduate Education at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. Scheytt's academic work covers control systems; risk and risk management; quality management; business development; and public and expert organizations.
Go to Profile#814
Gerald C. Coles
#147679
Overall Influence
#815
Will Eisner
#90171
Overall Influence
1917 - 2005 (88 years)
William Erwin Eisner was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art . The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Wi...
Go to Profile#816
Satish Nambisan
#100248
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Satish Nambisan is the Nancy and Joseph Keithley Professor of Technology Management at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Personal life and education Nambisan was born in Kerala, India. He holds a PhD in business administration from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management of Syracuse University; an MBA from XLRI – Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur.
Go to Profile#817
Rolfe Sean Morrison
#148119
Overall Influence
#818
Pervaiz Khalid Ahmed
#148268
Overall Influence
#819
Hiroshi Konno
#148483
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
#820
Patricia M. Dechow
#148559
Overall Influence
#821
Francis A. Buttle
#148615
Overall Influence
#822
John D. Martin
#149025
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
John David Martin is an American finance and business professor and author currently holding the Carr P. Collins Chair of Finance at Baylor University. Another notable named chair position he has held was the First Republic Bank Centennial Professor of Business Administration and subsequently also the Eugene McDermott Centennial Professor of Banking and Finance at the University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#823
Jiatao (j.t.) Li
#149032
Overall Influence
#824
Ian Phau
#149078
Overall Influence
#825
Walter Baets
#112776
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Walter R.J. Baets is a Belgian-born author and academic. and the previous director of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business . Where he was the Chair of the Association of African Business Schools as well as the Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership at the UCT GSB. In 2015, the UCT GSB was crowned the top business school on the continent for the eighth year running.
Go to Profile#826
Yoram ‘jerry’ Wind
#149139
Overall Influence
#827
Carl J. Caspersen
#149198
Overall Influence
#828
Robin Fredric Anders
#149439
Overall Influence
#829
Bradford. Cornell
#149743
Overall Influence
#830
A. Adam Lindgreen
#149806
Overall Influence
#831
Mark Keil
#149819
Overall Influence
#832
Sidney John Gray
#150013
Overall Influence
#833
Bala V. Balachandran
#112718
Overall Influence
1937 - 2021 (84 years)
Bala V. Balachandran was an Indian academic who served as Professor Emeritus of Accounting Information & Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He was also the founder, Chairman of the Board and Dean Emeritus of Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, India.
Go to Profile#834
George M. Modlin
#107042
Overall Influence
1903 - 1998 (95 years)
George Matthews Modlin was president of the University of Richmond from 1946 to 1971. He then served as chancellor of the university until 1986 and chancellor emeritus until his death in 1998. The George M. Modlin Fine Arts Building at the University of Richmond, opened in 1968, was named in his honor upon his retirement in 1971. In 1994, the building was renamed the Booker Hall of Music as the University prepared to expand the fine arts complex. The entire project, opened in 1996, then became known as the George M. Modlin Center for the Arts.
Go to Profile#835
Henry P. Jr. Sims
#150362
Overall Influence
#836
Daniel A. Levinthal
#120046
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Daniel A. Levinthal is a Reginald H. Jones Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Levinthal is considered to be one of the most prominent management scholars. His pioneering work on organizational learning, complex systems, and innovation as search process have advanced understanding of organizational and industry evolution and received numerous international awards. His papers remain some of the highest cited papers in management and social sciences in general.
Go to Profile#837
Choong Whan Park
#150497
Overall Influence
#838
Igor V. Filatotchev
#150517
Overall Influence
#839
Lloyd C. Harris
#150887
Overall Influence
#840
Sanjay Kumar Sharma
#151212
Overall Influence
#841
Philippe Baumard
#70619
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Philippe N. Baumard graduated from the University of Aix-Marseille II , and Paris Dauphine University . Philippe Baumard is an organizational scientist who has held visiting professorships at New York University from 1997 to 1998, University of California, Berkeley from 2004 to 2007, Stanford University from 2008 to 2010. He is currently professor at the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts , associate-researcher at École Polytechnique's Chair on Innovation & Regulation, Paris, and president of the scientific council of France's High Council for Strategic Education and Research
Go to Profile#842
Ronald Paul Hill
#151445
Overall Influence
#843
Ruth V. Aguilera
#151485
Overall Influence
#844
Terry Odean
#151494
Overall Influence
#845
Lauren Block
#107709
Overall Influence
Lauren Goldberg Block is an American marketing academic. Block earned a bachelor's degree from University at Albany, SUNY in 1984, followed by a Master's in Business Administration from Emory University in 1988, and subsequently completed doctoral studies at Columbia University in 1993. She is the Lippert Professor of Marketing at Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business. In 2020, Block was appointed the chief editor of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, succeeding Anirban Mukhopadhyay in the role.
Go to Profile#846
Daniel Sperling
#151662
Overall Influence
#847
Vojislav Maksimovic
#151983
Overall Influence
#848
Su Dongshui
#112041
Overall Influence
Su Dongshui , chief professor of Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and the chair of IFSAM 9th world conference , Shanghai, China, was the founder of the oriental management school. Oriental management is a new research branch in the world academia of management science. As an experienced scholar, Su was engaged in the teaching and scientific studies in Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai University of Finance Economics and Fudan University successively, after his graduation from Xiamen University in 1953. During his more than 50 years of teaching career, he brought up more than 200 masters, over 80 doctors and 40 post-doctors.
Go to Profile#849
Debbie Haski-Leventhal
#135360
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Debbie Haski-Leventhal is an author and public speaker and professor of Management at Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University. She is a scholar of corporate social responsibility , responsible management education and volunteerism and is the editor-in-chief of Society and Business Review .
Go to Profile#850
Claire Wathes
#139199
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Claire Wathes née Bulman is a British veterinary researcher who studies the reproduction of farm animals. She is known for her work on infertility in dairy cattle. As of 2018, she is a professor of veterinary reproduction at the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield.
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