Search People Result | Academic Influence

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).

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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Business,

#1051

Erik Lie

#168885

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Erik Lie is a Norwegian finance professor at the University of Iowa who published a report about options backdating that led to many investigations by the SEC into the potentially illegal practice. He was the subject of profile in Business Week for his contribution to uncovering options backdating scandals.

#1052

David George Green

#65514

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

David George Green is the chief executive of the British think tank Civitas, which he founded in 2000. He is an author who also writes for British newspapers, including The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph, and has taken part in broadcast programmes such as Newsnight, the Moral Maze and Today. He has made occasional contributions to The Guardians Comment is Free site, and he has contributed pieces to The Daily Telegraph news blogs.

#1053

Paul Achleitner

Paul Achleitner

#165603

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Paul M. Achleitner is an Austrian businessman who served as chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank from 2012 to 2022. Education Achleitner studied Business Administration, Economics, Law and Social Sciences at the University of St. Gallen, where he also earned his doctorate. He was also a visiting fellowship at Harvard Business School from 1982 to 1984.

#1054

Robert Hemenway

#46182

Overall Influence

1941 - 2015 (74 years)

Robert Emery Hemenway was the 16th chancellor of the University of Kansas . Biography Hemenway was born on August 10, 1941, in Nebraska. He arrived at KU in 1995 as the successor to interim chancellor Del Shankel. Prior to his tenure at KU, Hemenway served as chancellor of the University of Kentucky from 1989 to 1995 and Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma from 1986 to 1989. Hemenway was succeeded as chancellor by Bernadette Gray-Little.

#1055

Kai-Fu Lee

#100490

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Kai-Fu Lee is a Taiwanese businessman, computer scientist, investor, and writer. He is currently based in Beijing, China. Lee developed a speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie Mellon University. He later worked as an executive, first at Apple, then SGI, Microsoft, and Google.

#1056

Janet Bercovitz

#124110

Overall Influence

Janet Bercovitz is an American entrepreneurship scholar and the Deming Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder in strategy, entrepreneurship, and operations.

#1057

Martin J. Fettman

Martin J. Fettman

#23589

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Martin Joseph Fettman is an American pathologist and researcher who flew on NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-58 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia as a Payload Specialist. Personal data Born December 31, 1956, Brooklyn, New York. Married to Heather Connally DVM MS DACVECC. Recreational interests include scuba diving, amateur radio, flying, bicycling, pistol marksmanship, camping and mountain hiking, photography, travel, reading , and music . His mother, Mrs. Elaine Fettman Peck, resides in Brooklyn, New York, with his stepfather, Mr. Harold Peck. His father, Mr. Bernard P. Fettman, is deceased.

#1058

Colette Henry

#117961

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Colette Henry is an Irish social scientist who is Head of the Department of Business Studies at Dundalk Institute of Technology. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the founding editor of The International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship.

#1059

David Karp

#136735

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (38 years)

David Karp is an American webmaster, entrepreneur, and blogger, best known as the founder and former CEO of the short-form blogging platform Tumblr. Karp began his career, without having received a high school diploma, as an intern under Fred Seibert at the animation company Frederator Studios, where he built the studio's first blogging platform and conceived, wrote, and edited their first internet video network, Channel Frederator. Karp went on to work for the online parenting forum UrbanBaby until it was sold to CNET in 2006. Karp then started his own software consulting company, Davidville, where he worked with software engineer Marco Arment on projects for clients.

#1060

Cornelia Pechmann

#174432

Overall Influence

Cornelia Pechmann is an American academic and marketing research scholar. She is a Professor of Marketing at University of California, Irvine Paul Merage School of Business. Pechmann has published numerous papers and articles regarding the effects of advertising, product labeling, social media, brand names and retail store locations on consumers. She is known for her research on studying adolescents' response to pro and anti-tobacco and drug advertising. Her recent work examines the use of social media for online self-help groups and she has worked on developing Tweet2Quit for smoking cessati...

#1061

Myron L. Coulter

#88869

Overall Influence

1929 - 2011 (82 years)

Myron Lee Coulter, Ed.D. was an American university professor, administrator, and president/chancellor. From 1968 to 1976, Coulter served as Associate Dean/Professor of Education, Vice President for Institutional Services, Vice President for Administration, and Interim President at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. The Coulter Faculty Commons for Excellence in Teaching and Learning is part of Western Carolina. He was appointed President of Idaho State University in Pocatello from 1976 to 1984. In 1984, Coulter became 16th Chancellor of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and served in that role until his retirement from higher education in 1994.

#1062

Rachel Baskerville

#175027

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Rachel Baskerville is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the Victoria University of Wellington. Academic career After a thesis titled 'Dimensions of CCA-1: an Oral History Study of the Failure of the Inflation Accounting Standard in New Zealand' at the Victoria University of Wellington, Baskerville rose to full professor.

#1063

Lionel Zinsou

#93441

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Lionel Zinsou is a French–Beninese economist and investment banker who was Prime Minister of Benin from 2015 to 2016. Since June 2017, he has been the president of Terra Nova, a centre-left French think tank.

#1064

Sangeet Paul Choudary

Sangeet Paul Choudary

#171327

Overall Influence

Sangeet Paul Choudary is a business executive, advisor, and best-selling author. He is best known for his work on platform economics and network effects. He is the co-author of the international best-selling book Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You.

#1065

Betty Collette

#132230

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Betty Elaine Collette was a veterinary pathologist from Asheville, North Carolina. She attended Stephens-Lee High School, earned her bachelor's degree in biology from Morgan State University, and her Ph.D. in bacteriology from Catholic University of America.

#1066

Michael Rake

#173202

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Sir Michael Derek Vaughan Rake is a British businessman, former chairman of BT Group, former chairman of Worldpay and a director of S&P Global. He served as president of the CBI from 2013 until 2015. He was appointed to the board of Huawei Technologies UK on 14 April 2020, having worked as an advisor for the company since 1 January 2019.

#1067

Howard Deutch

#114687

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Howard Deutch is an American film and television director who worked in collaboration with filmmaker John Hughes, directing two of Hughes's best-known screenplays, Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. Since 2011, he has primarily directed television productions, including multiple episodes of Getting On and True Blood.

#1068

Alan Shugart

#167336

Overall Influence

1930 - 2006 (76 years)

Alan Field Shugart was an American engineer, entrepreneur and business executive whose career defined the modern computer disk drive industry. Personal history Born in Los Angeles, he graduated from the University of Redlands, receiving a degree in engineering physics.

#1069

Angela von den Driesch

#92870

Overall Influence

1934 - 2012 (78 years)

Angela von den Driesch was a German archaeologist and veterinarian. She was a professor and former director of the Institut für Paläoanatomie, Domestikationsforschung und Geschichte der Tiermedizin at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

#1070

Nicholas S. Zeppos

Nicholas S. Zeppos

#23483

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Nicholas S. Zeppos is an American lawyer and university administrator. He was the eighth chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. On April 2, 2019, Zeppos announced that he would be stepping down from the position on August 15 of the same year.

#1071

Claire Massey

#183126

Overall Influence

Claire Massey is a New Zealand agribusiness academic. As of 2018, she is a full professor at the Massey University. Academic career After a 1999 PhD titled 'The role of the external consultant in facilitating enterprise development' at the Massey University, Massey joined the staff, rising to full professor.

#1072

Brian Gallagher

Brian Gallagher

#170480

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Brian Gallagher is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of United Way Worldwide. Early life and education Gallagher was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was raised in Hobart, Indiana, where he was one of six children. His father was a plumber and his mother was a homemaker who reupholstered chairs for extra income.

#1073

Luis Viceira

#177739

Overall Influence

Luis M. Viceira is an American economist currently the George E. Bates Professor at Harvard Business School. He graduated from Autonomous University of Madrid and Harvard University .

#1074

Victor Adenuga Oyenuga

#94458

Overall Influence

1917 - 2010 (93 years)

Victor Adenuga Oyenuga, CFR was a Nigerian Professor Emeritus of Agricultural science and pioneer President of the Nigerian Academy of Science. He was the first Emeritus Professor of the University of Ibadan.

#1075

Dashun Wang

#132858

Overall Influence

Dashun Wang is a Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering, at Northwestern University since 2016. At Kellogg from 2019, he is the Founding Director of the Center for Science of Science and Innovation . He is also a core faculty at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems and an Adjunct Professor of Department of Physics, at Northeastern University. His current research focus is on Science of Science. Dashun is a recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator award and Poets & Quants Best 40 Under 40 Professors .

#1076

Andrew Davenport

#112678

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Andrew Davenport is an English writer, puppeteer, producer, composer, and actor, specialising in creating television, music, and books for young children. He is known as co-creator and writer of Teletubbies and writer, voice artist and puppeteer of "Tiny" on Tots TV. He is also the creator, writer, and composer of both In the Night Garden... and Moon and Me.

#1077

Robert D. Holt

#178184

Overall Influence

#1078

David Thesmar

#178193

Overall Influence

#1079

James Dale

#108086

Overall Influence

James Langham Dale is an Australian agricultural scientist. He is a professor in the Faculty of Science School of Biology & Environmental Science at Queensland University of Technology . Dale is best known for development of improved strains of bananas. In 2021, his team earned recognition for a strain of Cavendish bananas resistant to Panama disease tropical race 4.

#1080

William MacGregor Henderson

#73528

Overall Influence

1913 - 2000 (87 years)

Sir William MacGregor Henderson FRS FRSE MRCVS was a Scottish veterinary expert on foot and mouth disease. He was also President of the Zoological Society of London, 1984–1989. He was in charge of controlling foot and mouth disease in South America from 1957 to 1966. In his life he was generally called Gregor Henderson.

#1081

Teppo Felin

#178558

Overall Influence

#1082

James E. Collins

#112777

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

James E. Collins is an American veterinary physician and academic. He is the professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota and its Director of the veterinary diagnostic laboratory. Collins has written several research papers and articles in the field of veterinarian medicine.

#1083

Tom Galligan

#86438

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Thomas C. Galligan Jr. is an American lawyer, legal scholar, administrator and educator who was the Interim President of Louisiana State University. He served as the eighth president of Colby-Sawyer College and as dean and professor of law at the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville, where he taught torts and admiralty.

#1084

Victor Niederhoffer

Victor Niederhoffer

#168899

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Victor Niederhoffer is an American hedge fund manager, champion squash player, bestselling author and statistician. Life and career Niederhoffer was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family. His paternal grandfather Martin , an accountant and court interpreter, married Birdie in 1916. His maternal grandparents were Sam and Gertrude Eisenberg. His father, Dr. Arthur "Artie" Niederhoffer , graduated from Brooklyn College in 1937, and then from Brooklyn Law School, and finally with a Ph.D. from New York University . He served in the New York City Police Department for 21 years , and then taught as a professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice for 14 years.

#1085

Dorian Shainin

#162744

Overall Influence

1914 - 2000 (86 years)

Dorian Shainin was an American quality consultant, aeronautics engineer, author, and college professor most notable for his contributions in the fields of industrial problem solving, product reliability, and quality engineering, particularly the creation and development of the "Red X" concept.

#1086

Deng Conghao

#104882

Overall Influence

1920 - 1998 (78 years)

Deng Conghao was a Chinese chemist and educator. He served as President of Shandong University from June 1984 until November 1986.

#1087

David Warburton

#157883

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

David John Warburton is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Somerton and Frome from 2015 until his resignation in 2023. On his election in the 2015 general election he represented the Conservative Party, but was suspended from the party in April 2022 pending the outcome of an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme investigation into allegations of harassment and class A drug use. Prior to entering politics, he was the founder, chief executive and chairman of Pitch Entertainment Group. On 17 June 2023, Warburton announced his resignation as an MP, tri...

#1088

Warren Bebbington

Warren Bebbington

#103676

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Warren Arthur Bebbington was the 20th Vice Chancellor of the University of Adelaide. He was previously the Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Melbourne. He commenced his position at the University of Adelaide in July 2012, and retired in April 2017.

#1089

Paul Taylor

#138100

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Paul Simon Taylor is a retired English professional mixed martial artist who formerly competed in the Lightweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional competitor from 2002 until 2013, Taylor also competed for Cage Rage.

#1090

James Popple

#74565

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

James Popple is CEO of the Law Council of Australia. He is also an Honorary Professor in the College of Law and the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

#1091

Jack Heinemann

#94777

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Jack Alfred Heinemann is an American-New Zealand academic. Academic career After an undergrad at University of Wisconsin-Madison Heinemann studied for a PhD from the University of Oregon. He currently works at the University of Canterbury where he is director of the Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety.

#1092

Darren Woods

#167951

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Darren W. Woods is an American businessman who is the chief executive officer and chairman of ExxonMobil since January 1, 2017. His salary exceeds $20,000,000 per year. Early life and education Woods was born in Wichita, Kansas. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University, followed by an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

#1093

Chris Brown

#96920

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Chris Brown is an Australian veterinarian, television presenter and author. He is best known for the television series Bondi Vet, which began screening in 2009. He hosted The Open Road with Doctor Chris on CBS. In Australia, he appeared on the lifestyle program The Living Room, and alongside Julia Morris was the presenter of the local version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.

#1094

Emilie Feldman

#179787

Overall Influence

Emilie R. Feldman is an American business theorist. Feldman graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Business School, and subsequently joined the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, where she is the Michael L. Tarnopol Professor of Management.

#1095

Kathryn LaTour

#176042

Overall Influence

Kathryn LaTour is an American academic, researcher and author. She is an applied cognitive psychologist and currently serves as the Banfi Vintners Professor of Wine Education and Management at the School of Hotel Administration within Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business.

#1096

Gunter Pauli

#169905

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Gunter Pauli is an entrepreneur, economist, and author born in 1956 in Antwerp . He is best known for his main work, The Blue Economy. He has lived on 4 continents, is fluent in 7 languages, is a resident of Japan since 1994 and spends most of his time in South Africa.

#1097

Charlie Ward

#131779

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Charlie Ward is an Irish mixed martial artist currently competing in the middleweight division of Bellator MMA. A professional competitor since 2014, he formerly competed for the UFC. Mixed martial arts career

#1098

Randall S. Peterson

#133595

Overall Influence

Randall Scott Peterson is a professor of Organisational Behaviour and Academic Director of the Leadership Institute at London Business School. Biography He received a B.S. in agricultural education, animal science, and agricultural economics in 1986 and then an MA in educational psychology from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and then received a Ph.D. in psychology in 1995 from University of California, Berkeley, with a thesis "A directive leadership style can be both virtue and vice : evidence from elite and experimental groups" He then took a position as assistant professor, North...

#1099

George Macdonald Urquhart

#123362

Overall Influence

1925 - 1997 (72 years)

George Macdonald Urquhart FRSE FRCVS was a Scottish veterinarian and professor of veterinary parasitology at the University of Glasgow School of Veterinary Medicine from 1970 to 1990. He helped create the first commercial vaccine for a parasitic disease in cattle. Under his leadership in the field, the university gained an international reputation for veterinary parasitology.

#1100

Krista Varady

#104309

Overall Influence

Krista A. Varady is a Canadian-American scientist known for her studies of intermittent fasting on chronic disease risk in human subjects. Varady was one of the first scientists to study intermittent fasting in humans. As of 2022, she is a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois Chicago in the department of Kinesiology and Nutrition. She also serves as the director of the Human Nutrition Research Center at UIC. Her work is primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is also the co-author of a book about intermittent fasting for the general public, titled The Every ...

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