World's 20 most powerful business people

They are the world's most powerful people in the corporate world. They lead big companies or world's leading financial institutions.

Meet the people who matter in the world of business according to the Forbes magazine.

1. Bill Gates (Rank 5)
Age: 56 years

Bill Gates is the chairman of Microsoft, a company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's richest people.

He was the world's richest man from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third.

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2. Ben Bernanke (Rank 8)
Age: 57 years

Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States.

During his tenure as chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis.

Bernanke was a professor at Princeton University and was chair of the Department of Economics there from 1996 to September 2002.

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3. Mark Zuckerberg (Rank 9)
Age: 27 years

Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest in the Forbes'list of most powerful people in business.

He is the founder and chief executive officer of social networking site Facebook.
In 2010, Zuckerberg was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.

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4. Mario Draghi (Rank 12)

Age: 64 years

An Italian banker and economist, he succeeded Jean-Claude Trichet as President of the European Central Bank on 1 November 2011.

He was previously the governor of the Bank of Italy from January 2006 till October 2011.

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5. Warren Buffett (Rank 20)
Age: 81 years

One of the most successful investors in the world, Warren Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and consistently ranked among the world's richest people.

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6. Carlos Slim (Rank 23)
Age: 71 years

Carlos Slim Helu, the world's richest man is a Mexican business tycoon.

He is the chairman and chief executive of telecommunications companies Telmex and America Movil and has extensive holdings in other Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso SAB.

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7. Rupert Murdoch (Rank 24)
Age: 80 years

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world's second-largest media conglomerate.

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8. Michael Duke (Rank 27)
Age: 61 years

Michael Terry Duke is an American businessman, and currently the fourth chief executive officer of Wal-Mart.

Duke joined Wal-Mart in 1995, and most recently served as the executive in charge of the company's international operations. He became the CEO of Wal-Mart in February 2009.

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9. Jeffery Immelett (Rank 28)
Age: 55 years

Jeffrey Immelt is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the US-based conglomerate General Electric.

He was selected by GE's Board of Directors in 2000 to replace Jack Welch following his retirement.

Previously, Immelt had headed up GE's Medical Systems division (now known as GE Healthcare) as its President and CEO.

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10. Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Rank 30)
Age: 38 years

Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched internet giant Google in September 1998.

He co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998 while pursuing a PhD at Stanford University, and was the first CEO until 2001-growing the company to more than 200 employees and profitability. Sergey Brin co-founded Google Inc in 1998.

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11. Rostam Ghasemi (Rank 32)
Age: 47 years

Rostam Ghasemi is the President of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Rostam Ghasemi is Iran's Minister of Petroleum since 3 August 2011.

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12. Lou Jiwei (Rank 33)
Age: 60

Lou Jiwei is the chairman and chief executive officer of CIC.

Previously, he served as executive deputy Minister of Finance, Deputy Governor of Guizhou Province, and Director General of the Macroeconomic Control Department of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic Systems.

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13. Mukesh Ambani (Rank 35)

Age: 54 years

India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries.
 

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14. Masaaki Shirakawa (Rank 36)
Age: 62 years

Masaaki Shirakawa is the Governor of Bank of Japan. He is also a director and vice-chairman of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Shirakawa joined the Bank of Japan in 1972.

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15. Christine Lagarde (Rank 39)
Age: 55 years

Christine Madeleine Odette is a French lawyer and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund since 5 July 2011.

Earlier, she held various ministerial posts in the French government. Lagarde was the first woman ever to become minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy and is the first woman to ever head the IMF.

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16. Jeff Bezos (Rank 40)
Age: 47 years

Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994. Amazon made him one of the most prominent dot-com entrepreneurs and a billionaire. In 2004, he founded a human spaceflight startup company called Blue Origin.

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17. Jamie Dimon (Rank 41)
Age: 55

James Dimon is the CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Dimon was named to Time magazine's 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011 lists of the world's 100 most influential people.

He was also named to Institutional Investor's Best CEOs list in the All-America Executive Team Survey from 2008 through 2011.

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18. Robin Li (Rank 42)
Age: 42 years

Robin Li is a Chinese entrepreneur and co-founder of China's most popular search engine Baidu. In 2000, he founded Baidu with Eric Xu.

He has been the CEO of Baidu since January 2004, which was listed on Nasdaq in August 2005.

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19. Lloyd Blankfein (Rank 43)
Age: 57 years

Lloyd Craig Blankfein is the chief executive officer and chairman of Goldman Sachs.

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20. Li Ka-shing (Rank 44)
Age: 83 years

Chinese business tycoon, Li Ka-shing is also the chairman of Hutchison Whampoa.

He is the eleventh richest person in the world.