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).

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List of the most influential people in Law,

#2401

Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider

#97018
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider He has been a strong critic of the European Union and recently the Lisbon Treaty. Publications, work and references Der Rechtsweg zum Bundesverfassungsgericht in Bund-Länder-Streitigkeiten. Juristische Fakultät der Freien Universität Berlin [West]. Teildruck. Berlin [West] 1969, XXX S., S. 119–184 .Das Sozialprinzip. Zu seiner Stellung im Verfassungssystem des Grundgesetzes. 1974Staatsunternehmen und Privatrecht. Kritik der Fiskustheorie, exemplifiziert an § 1 UWG. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1986, .Res publica res populi. Grundlegung einer Allgemeinen Republiklehre.
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#2402

Robert A. Stein

#106394
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Robert A. Stein is the Everett Fraser Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and a past head of the American Bar Association. A noted scholar of estate planning, Stein was previously the William Pattee Professor and Dean at the University of Minnesota Law School, from which he received his law degree in 1961. He also taught law at UCLA and the University of Chicago.
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#2403

Kevin J. O'Connor

Kevin J. O'Connor
#79952
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Kevin James O'Connor is an American lawyer who serves as vice president, General Counsel & Government Relations for the Carrier Corporation. Previously, he served as an attorney appointed by President George W. Bush and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate as Connecticut’s 48th United States Attorney in 2002. From January to April 2006, O'Connor served as an associate deputy attorney general. In 2007, O'Connor served as Chief of Staff to United States Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. In 2008, O'Connor was unanimously confirmed as Associate Attorney General of the United States, the number three position at the U.S.
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#2404

Tadatoshi Takayama

#132019
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
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#2405

Michael R. Fontham

#110016
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Michael R. Fontham is a legal author, a law professor, and a practicing attorney and partner at the Stone Pigman law firm. He is the author of Trial Technique and Evidence and the lead author of Persuasive Written and Oral Advocacy: In Trial and Appellate Courts. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor of law at the Tulane University Law School and the Louisiana State University Schools of Law, and previously served as a visiting professor at the University of Virginia School of Law . He served as an attorney to the late John G. Schwegmann, a pioneer in the development of the modern su...
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#2406

Giorgio Orsoni

#107656
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Giorgio Orsoni is an Italian lawyer, politician and a former mayor of Venice. Biography Orsoni has been a lawyer by profession since 1972 and is Professor of administrative law at the University Ca 'Foscari of Venice. He has also been chairman of the Bar of Venice and president of the Union of Councils Triveneta Order.
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#2407

Evhen Tsybulenko

Evhen Tsybulenko
#52274
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Evhen Tsybulenko is an Estonian legal scholar of Ukrainian descent. He is professor of law at the Tallinn University of Technology and Kyiv International University and is focused on International Humanitarian Law.
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#2408

Wendy Dagworthy

#71039
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Wendy Dagworthy OBE is an English former fashion designer and now design academic. During her career she has led fashion design teaching at both the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, mentoring notable fashion designers including Stella McCartney and Hussein Chalayan. An influential designer in her own right in the 1970s and '80s with the Wendy Dagworthy label, and one of the founders of London Fashion Week, she was described by the Daily Telegraph as: "the high priestess of British fashion".
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#2409

David Barford

#49829
Overall Influence
David Barford is a British medical researcher and structural biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, UK. Education Barford studied Biochemistry at the University of Bristol and then went on to earn a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, supervised by Professor Dame Louise Johnson.
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#2410

Lynn Pasquerella

Lynn Pasquerella
#34876
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Lynn C. Pasquerella is an American academic and the 14th president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Before she assumed this position, she was the 17th president of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, serving from 2010 to 2016. She was a professor of philosophy at the University of Rhode Island for 19 years before becoming URI's Associate Dean of the Graduate School. From 2006 to 2008 she was vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Rhode Island. She was the Provost of the University of Hartford from 2008-10. She a...
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#2411

Rocky Tuan

Rocky Tuan
#4572
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Rocky Tuan Sung-chi is a Hong Kong medical researcher and bioengineer, currently the vice-chancellor and president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he served as distinguished visiting professor and director of the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine prior to taking up the vice-chancellorship. Previously he was on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he held a number of roles: Arthur J. Rooney Sr. Professor of Sports Medicine and the executive vice chair of the department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and a professor in the department of bioengineering.
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#2412

Ann Hui

Ann Hui
#55313
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Ann Hui On-wah, is a film director, producer, screenwriter and actress from Hong Kong who is one of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers of the Hong Kong New Wave. She is known for her films about social issues in Hong Kong which include: literary adaptations, martial arts, semi-autobiographical works, women's issues, social phenomena, political changes, and thrillers. She served as the president of the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild from 2004 to 2006.
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#2413

Stephen Cretney

#100746
Overall Influence
1936 - 2019 (83 years)
Stephen Michael Cretney, FBA, Hon. QC was a British legal scholar. He was Professor of Law at the University of Bristol from 1984 to 1993 and then a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, until 2001. Life Born on 25 February 1936, Cretney attended Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1956 to 1959.
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#2414

Nicole Jaffrézic‐renault

#132688
Overall Influence
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#2415

Zuzana Čaputová

#69492
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Zuzana Čaputová is a Slovak politician, lawyer and environmental activist. She is the fifth president of Slovakia, a position she has held since 15 June 2019. Čaputová is the first woman to hold the presidency, as well as the youngest president in the history of Slovakia, elected at the age of 45.
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#2416

Vincent J. Cardinal

#57660
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Vincent J. Cardinal is a graduate of Yale School of Drama. He is a playwright and director. He has written The Colorado Catechism and directed Queens Blvd. and Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion. Cardinal is the former chair of the Department of Musical Theatre at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
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#2417

Willem Thomas Eijsbouts

#109797
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Willem Thomas Eijsbouts is a Dutch professor of European constitutional law and its history at the University of Amsterdam and emeritus professor of European law at Leiden University. Career Eijsbouts attended grammar school and then studied law at the University of Leiden, where he graduated in 1969. He then studied at the Graduate Institute of International Studies and obtained the diplôme d'études approfondies in 1971. After his military service, he became a journalist, among others at De Tijd, de Volkskrant and Binnenlands Bestuur and worked as a freelancer. Starting in 1986, he worked at the University of Amsterdam's faculty of arts, European studies, as a lecturer in European law.
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#2418

Eric M. Runesson

#84170
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Eric Michael Runesson, born Andersson , is a Swedish lawyer, member of the Swedish Academy and Justice of the Supreme Court of Sweden. Biography Eric M. Runesson became a member of the Swedish Bar Association in 1993. He became a lawyer and partner in Sandart & Partners Law Office in 1996. Runesson became a Doctor of Law at the Stockholm School of Economics in 1996, writing his thesis on the Reconstruction of incomplete contracts. He became a lecturer in 2000.
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#2419

Sharif Abdullah

#88062
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Shariff Abdullah is an American attorney, academic, and writer. He works in the field of social, cultural and spiritual transformation. He is a proponent of an inclusive global human society. Shariff Abdullah teaches groups and individuals how to understand and practice inclusivity – the connection with all beings.
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#2420

Royce de Rohan Barondes

#102799
Overall Influence
Royce de Rohan Barondes is a scholar in the field of business law at the University of Missouri School of Law, where he primarily teaches Business Organizations, Contracts and Firearms Law. Life and career Barondes received both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in 1982 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985. While an undergraduate at MIT, Barondes cofounded the Rho Alpha chapter of Zeta Psi fraternity.
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#2421

Lewis Burwell Puller Jr.

#87874
Overall Influence
1945 - 1994 (49 years)
Lewis Burwell Puller Jr. was an attorney and a United States Marine Corps officer who was severely wounded in the Vietnam War. He won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his autobiography Fortunate Son.
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#2422

Mu'min al-Taq

#102352
Overall Influence
Abū Ja'far Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Nu'mān ibn Abī Ṭurayfa al-Bajalī al-Kūfī , known as Mu'min al-Ṭāq was a companion of Ja'far al-Sadiq and a Shia theologian in the 2nd/8th century. He was renowned for providing incisive and thought-provoking responses to questions from his opponents. He allegedly got into a heated argument with renowned scholar Abu Hanifa. He advocated for the rights of the imam and held that the imams are the only ones with the greatest knowledge required to lead humanity to felicity at its highest level. He wrote a number of works including Kitab al-imama and Kitab al-radd '...
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#2423

Donald N. Bersoff

#70232
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Donald Neil Bersoff is an American psychologist, attorney and academic. He was the president of the American Psychological Association in 2013. Before being elected president, Bersoff served as APA general counsel and held several leadership positions within the organization. He has been a faculty member at several law schools and he developed the nation's second joint graduate program in psychology and law. Bersoff has written four editions of a popular book on ethics and psychology.
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#2424

Jane Larson

#99801
Overall Influence
1958 - 2011 (53 years)
Jane Larson was the Voss-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Education and career Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Larson was a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate of Macalester College and a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif and Articles Editor of the Journal of Law and Inequality.
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#2425

Michael S. Wald

#112453
Overall Influence
Michael S. Wald is an American lawyer currently the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law, Emeritus at Stanford Law School and an Elected Fellow of the American Law Institute. Education BA Cornell University 1963MA Yale University Graduate School of Arts and SciencesLLB Yale Law School 1967
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#2426

Susan Poser

#56054
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Susan Poser is the current and first female president of Hofstra University, having succeeded retiring president Stuart Rabinowitz on August 1, 2021. Before being named to the Hofstra post, she was chief operating officer, provost, and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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#2427

J. Kenyon Mason

#87730
Overall Influence
1919 - 2017 (98 years)
John Kenyon Mason , CBE, FRCPath, DMJ, FRCPE, FRSE, and known as Ken Mason, was an emeritus professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. Bibliography J. Kenyon Mason, Graeme Laurie Law and Medical Ethics Graeme Laurie, J. Kenyon Mason Mason and McCall-Smith's Law and Medical Ethics J. Kenyon Mason Forensic Medicine for Lawyers J. Kenyon Mason Medico-Legal Aspects of Reproduction and Parenthood J. Kenyon Mason, Alexander McCall Smith Medico-legal Encyclopaedia
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#2428

Timothy M. Uyeki

#133591
Overall Influence
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#2429

Ian T. Smith

#87270
Overall Influence
Ian T. Smith, MA, LLB , is the Clifford Chance Professor of Employment Law at the University of East Anglia. He taught at the Universities of Canterbury, and Exeter before coming to the UEA Law School when it opened in 1977. He was called to the Bar in 1972 and is a member of Devereux Chambers in the Middle Temple specialising in employment and industrial relations law. He is also an editor of the key employment practitioners' text Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment Law and also writes the monthly bulletin associated with the text.
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#2430

Debora Diniz

Debora Diniz
#57377
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Debora Diniz Rodrigues , is an anthropologist and law professor at the University of Brasilia, and a co-founder and researcher at Anis: Institute for Bioethics. She is also a researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker. Her research projects focus on bioethics, feminism, human rights and health. She was a visiting researcher at the University of Leeds, the University of Michigan, the University of Toronto, among other institutions.
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#2431

Janet McLean

#112643
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Janet Margaret McLean is a New Zealand law academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland. Mcleans' interests include constitutional law, administrative law, legal method, comparative human rights law and common law theory. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
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#2432

Robrecht Pieters

#133717
Overall Influence
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#2433

Deborah Willis

Deborah Willis
#30406
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Deborah Willis is a contemporary African-American artist, photographer, curator of photography, photographic historian, author, and educator. Among her awards and honors, she is a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University.
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#2434

Michael Dougan

#87553
Overall Influence
Michael Dougan is Professor of European Law and Jean Monnet Chair in EU Law, at the University of Liverpool. He came to the attention of social media users in the United Kingdom when a video of one of his lectures was uploaded to YouTube and other social media platforms, in which he dissected the academic validity and honesty of the legal arguments presented by those advocating the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union – more commonly known as "Brexit" – in the lead up to the June 2016 referendum. During the approximately 25 minute long viral clip, Dougan surmises the Leave campa...
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#2435

Timo Koivurova

#113958
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Timo Koivurova is a research professor of the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland. He served as the director of the Centre from 2015 to 2020. His doctoral dissertation in 2001 was on environmental impact assessment in the Arctic. He became the director of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law 2003 and research professor in 2004.
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#2436

Wang Tieya

#106141
Overall Influence
1913 - 2003 (90 years)
Wang Tieya was an eminent Chinese jurist and former Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Wang Tieya was educated at Fudan University, Tsinghua University and the London School of Economics.
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#2437

Stephen Alexander Smith

#101727
Overall Influence
1958 - 2022 (64 years)
Stephen Alexander Smith was a Canadian legal scholar and writer. Early life and education Smith was born in Toronto and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University at Kingston in 1981. Thereafter, he received a law degree from the University of Toronto and then a DPhil from Balliol College, Oxford under the supervision of Joseph Raz.
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#2438

Joe Wright

Joe Wright
#34807
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Joseph Wright is an English film director. His motion pictures include the literary adaptations Pride & Prejudice , Atonement , Anna Karenina , and Cyrano , the action thriller Hanna , Peter Pan origin story Pan , and Darkest Hour , a political drama following Winston Churchill during World War II nominated for Best Picture.
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#2439

Mary Catharine. Law

#134249
Overall Influence
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#2440

Rodrigo Hinzpeter

#102764
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Rodrigo Javier Hinzpeter Kirberg is a Chilean lawyer and politician. He was one of the founders of National Renewal, a center-right political party. He was appointed Interior Minister on 11 March 2010 by President of Chile Sebastián Piñera. On 5 November 2012 he was appointed Defense Minister and his term ended on 11 March 2014.
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#2441

Alfredo Romero

#36830
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Alfredo Romero Mendoza is a Venezuelan lawyer, human rights activist and executive director of the non-governmental organization Foro Penal. He received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2017.
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#2442

Jonathan Klick

#99231
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Jonathan Klick is an American economist who has written numerous works on empirical law and economics. His scholarship addresses tort liability and moral hazard, criminal punishment, health regulation, and business regulation. He is a Professor of Law at University of Pennsylvania Law School and previously served on the faculty at Florida State University College of Law. He is an editor-in-chief of the International Review of Law and Economics.
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#2443

Francis Vallat

#124296
Overall Influence
1912 - 2008 (96 years)
Sir Francis Aimé Vallat, was a British international lawyer. Biography Vallat was educated at University College, University of Toronto and Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, where he studied under Arnold McNair and took the LL.B. He was called to the bar by Gray's Inn in 1935.
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#2444

H. Reese Hansen

#123458
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
H. Reese Hansen is an American legal academic. He is the longest serving dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University having served as dean from 1989 until 2004. Hansen received a bachelor's degree from Utah State University and a law degree from the University of Utah. After practicing law with the firm of Strong, Poelman & Fox in Salt Lake City for two years, Hansen joined the BYU Law School faculty in 1974.
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#2445

Christiaan Timmermans

#125593
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Christiaan Willem Anton Timmermans is a Dutch law professor and judge. He was a judge at the European Court of Justice between 2000 and 2010. Early life Timmermans was born in 1941 in Rotterdam. From 1953 to 1959 he attended the Sint Francisucscollege in Rotterdam. From 1959 to 1966 he studied law at Leiden University and specialized in private law.
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#2446

Suellyn Scarnecchia

#82481
Overall Influence
Suellyn Scarnecchia is a clinical law professor at the University of Michigan. She previously served as the general counsel and vice president at the University of Michigan from 2008 to 2012. From 2003 to 2008 she was the dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, the first woman to fill that position.
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#2447

Stephen R. Perry

#90478
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Stephen R. Perry is a Canadian scholar in the fields of jurisprudence and political philosophy. He is the John J. O'Brien Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Director of the Institute of Law & Philosophy.
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#2448

Andrew Fois

#64193
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Andrew Fois is an attorney who serves as the chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States since 2022. He served as the deputy attorney general for public safety in the Office of the Attorney General in Washington, D.C. from April 9, 2012, to March 2015. He was awarded the Edmund Randolph Award, the Justice Department's highest honor for distinguished service.
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#2449

Ivan Šimonović

#80778
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Ivan Šimonović is a Croatian diplomat, politician and law scholar. In October 2008 he was appointed Justice Minister of Croatia. On 3 May 2010, Šimonović was appointed UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights. As of 1 October 2016, Šimonović has been appointed as the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect.
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#2450

Joseph Bankman

#87858
Overall Influence
Alan Joseph Bankman is an American lawyer, Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School, and psychologist. He was also employed at FTX, the cryptocurrency company founded by his son, Sam Bankman-Fried, who is an MIT graduate, entrepreneur, and convicted felon. His tenure at FTX lasted until the company's bankruptcy and subsequent collapse in 2022.
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