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Top business leaders
In the past 25 years, influential business
leaders have explored new frontiers, changed the way we think of
traditional commerce and even made blunders that cost millions of dollars.
We gathered a distinguished panel representing different business fields
to rank the top business leaders who changed the way the world does
business in the last quarter-century.
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No. 1
Bill Gates,
CEO Microsoft
Some consider Bill Gates to be
the most successful living entrepreneur. He dropped out of Harvard in his
junior year and founded Microsoft in 1975 with childhood friend Paul
Allen. A driving force in the computer software industry for the past 25
years, Gates is also one of the richest men in the world. In 2000, Gates
founded with his wife the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which
supports philanthropic initiatives in global health and
learning.
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No. 2
Sam Walton,
founder and CEO of Wal-Mart
The king of
discount retailing had a simple business model that changed the way
Americans shop -- low costs and low prices. The first true Wal-Mart opened
in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, and the business is now the world's largest
retailer, with more than 1.5 million people working for the Wal-Mart
Corporation. Once one of the richest men in the world, Walton died on
April 5, 1992.
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No. 3
Jack Welch,
former CEO of General Electric
Jack Welch
became the youngest CEO ever for General Electric in 1981 at age 45, and
in his first year he introduced the strategy of "Fix it. Sell it. Close
it." Welch's nickname, "Neutron Jack," is a result of his management
style: informal but demanding. By the time Welch left GE in 2001, he had
increased the company's market value from $12 billion in 1981 to
approximately $280 billion.
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No. 4
Warren Buffett,
CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
Known as the
"Oracle of Omaha" by his admirers, Buffett has become the most successful
investor in the world. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO's approach to investing
is simple: ignore short-term trends and Wall Street fashions and instead
find undervalued companies. He is the second wealthiest U.S. man with a
more than $40 billion fortune, according to Forbes magazine.
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No. 5
Lee Iacocca,
former CEO of Chrysler
When Iacocca arrived
at Chrysler in 1978, the company was in a financial tailspin. He began
rebuilding the company from the ground up, implementing decisive -- but
sometimes controversial -- measures in the process, including layoffs and
a loan guarantee from Congress. Iacocca became the popular face of the
auto maker after appearing in Chrysler commercials and writing a
best-selling autobiography.
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No. 6
Steve Jobs,
co-founder and CEO of Apple Computer
Jobs
founded Apple with Steve Wozniak in the 1970s and was part of the personal
computer revolution over the next decade. In 1985 Jobs left Apple but
returned as interim CEO in 1997 to help the struggling company. After the
success of the iMac, Apple dropped Jobs' "interim" title in 2000. The
redesign of the Mac computers and the release of the popular iPod
followed, putting Apple back on the map. Jobs is also co-founder and CEO
of Pixar.
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No. 7
Herb Kelleher,
chairman of Southwest Airlines
When
quirky entrepreneur Kelleher and his partner Rollin King started Southwest
Airlines in 1971, the airline had only four planes and fewer than 70
employees. Today, Southwest serves 30 airports and has more than 32,000
employees. Kelleher instituted the first profit-sharing plan in the
airline industry, and he credits Southwest employees with the airline's
success.
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No. 8
Michael Dell,
founder of Dell Computers
Dell began his
company in his college dorm room, and his vision was simple: build a
relationship directly with customers by cutting out the middleman. Today,
the company is an empire, and Dell became the youngest CEO of a company
ever to earn a ranking on the Fortune 500
list.
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No. 9
Alan Greenspan,
Federal Reserve Board
chairman
Greenspan, serving his fifth-consecutive term as
chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, is considered by many to be the
world's most powerful financial figure. Greenspan doesn't run a company,
but he has a large part in directing U.S. monetary policy. Four different
presidents have appointed Greenspan to his post: Ronald Reagan, George
H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W.
Bush.
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No.
10 Carl Icahn,
1980s corporate raider
Icahn's hostile
takeover of TWA in 1985 earned him a reputation as a corporate raider, and
it is a label that sticks. He is a master at seeing the value of a company
that others dismissed, and he scored big with takeovers of Texaco and ACF.
Last year, Icahn made $250 million on ImClone shares he bought the day
Martha Stewart sold hers, according to the Wall Street
Journal.