Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People Of 2016: The Famous And The Unknown

On Thursday, Time magazine revealed the 2016 edition of its annual list of the “100 Most Influential People” in the World. The list honors pioneers, world leaders, local activists, artists, athletes, scientists and moguls from around the globe – and a several U.S. presidential candidates. Other notable public figures wrote short essays for each one of the people included in the catalog.

"The people on the list, each in their own way, have lessons to teach. We can debate those lessons; we don't have to endorse them or agree with them,” Time explained. “One way or another they each embody a breakthrough: they broke the rules, broke the record, broke the silence, broke the boundaries to reveal what we’re capable of.”

So, let’s take a look at some highlights from the list.

It’s No Longer A Man’s World

Time’s 2016 list of most influential people included 40 women. The selection ranged from U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to 19-year-old Olympic swimmer, Katie Ledecky.

Other women that made it to the top 100 were:

• Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, recognized by her transgender-rights activism
• Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany since 2005.
• Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian activist that fights against female genital mutilation, a practice that reaches 200 million young women around the world.
• Niki Minaj, classified as a role model to many young women.
• Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat that was appointed the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010.
• Yayoi Kusama. an 87-year old Japanese artist.
• Diana Natalicio, the longest-serving president of a public research University – she’s been the President of the University of Texas at El Paso since 1988.
• Tsai Ing-wen, president-elect of the Republic of China; the first woman ever elected to the office.
• Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Presidential Candidates

Several U.S. presidential candidates made it to Time’s list. In fact, all the main contenders, except John Kasich, were there: the catalogue featured Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz this year.

World Leaders

Probably the category to which people pay most attention is the one for World Leaders. The list included:

• North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
• Russian President Vladimir Putin
• United States Air Force general Lori Robinson
• NBC Journalist Lester Holt
• Queen Máxima of the Netherlands
• French President François Hollande
• Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker
• Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Raghuram Rajan
• Burmese First and incumbent State Counsellor and Leader of the National League for Democracy Aung San Suu Kyi
• Brazilian Federal Judge Sergio Moro
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
• Chinese President Xi Jinping
• U.S. President Barack Obama
• Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri
• South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley
• President of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Jin Liqun
• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

In The Business World

Next, let’s take a quick look into some of the people that made it to Time’s list, which also have a big participation in the business and financial arena. Among them, we can count:

• Apple Inc. AAPL’s CEO Tim Cook.
• Golden State Warriors basketball player Stephen Curry, who has his own, fast-growing footwear line under the Under Armour Inc UA brand.
• Kathleen Kennedy, president of Walt Disney Co DIS’s Lucasfilm.
• Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR and inventor of the Oculus Rift, which were recently acquired by Facebook Inc FB.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
• Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, founder of DST Global and early supporter of Facebook and Twitter Inc TWTR. Milner was also a big backer of Spotify, Airbnb, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA and JD.Com Inc(ADR) JD.
• Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL’s Google.

• Iconic Figures

  In the Icons category of its list, Time included:

• Nicki Minaj
• Lewis Hamilton
• Usain Bolt
• Marilynne Robinson
• Karlie Kloss
• Jordan Spieth
• Alejandro González Iñárritu
• Adele
• Tu Youyou
• Denis Mukwege
• Sania Mirza
• Ronda Rousey
• Leonardo DiCaprio

The Essay Writers

Finally, some of the essay writers that should be highlighted included:

• J.J. Abrahams, who did Lin-Manuel Miranda
• Bill Clinton, who did Raj Panjabi
• Anthony Bourdain, who did Roy Choi
• Bill and Melinda Gates, who did Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg
• Michael Bloomberg, who did Eli Broad
• Joe Biden, who did Pope Francis
• Stephen Hawking, who did Yuri Milner
• Marc Jacobs, who did Yayoi Kusana
• Steven Spielberg, who did Mark Rylance
• Donatella Versace, who did Riccardo Tisci
• Janet Yellen, who did Christine Lagarde
• Bono, who did John Kerry
• Joseph Stiglitz, who did Jin Liqun
• John McCain, who did Sean MacFarland
• Paul Singer, who did Mauricio Macri
• Barack Obama, who did Aung San Suu Kyi
• Elton John, who did Darren Walker
• John Kerry, who did Leonardo DiCaprio
• Tina Fey, who did Ronda Rousey
• Guillermo del Toro, who did Iñárritu
• Ziggy Marley, who did Usain Bolt
• Lil Wayne, who did Nicki Minaj

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.