Top Agenda Setters - Agenda Setters 2009
silicon.com chooses the top 50 most influential individuals in the worldwide technology and IT industries – business leaders, CEOs, CIOs, techies, open source gurus, security experts, visionaries, entrepreneurs and politicos
Steve Jobs
Apple CEO
Steve Jobs becomes the only person, in the 10-year history of Agenda Setters, to have made it to the top of the list - twice. He's also made the list in eight of the nine previous years, and has... more
Evan Williams
Twitter CEO and co-founder
It's been a spectacular year for Twitter, the microblogging site that started life back in 2006 as a side project for staff at a San Francisco start-up but has since mushroomed into a social... more
Jimmy Wales
Wiki Media founder and co-founder of Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia, is a familiar face on the Agenda Setters list and one whose star is rising. He made the top 10 in 2006; the top five in 2008; and lands... more
Eric Schmidt
Google CEO
Google CEO Eric Schmidt makes the Agenda Setters top 10 for the sixth consecutive year in 2009 and rises two places from his 2008 ranking as Google continues to expand its product portfolio and... more
Rupert Murdoch
News Corp CEO
Rupert Murdoch is one of the most powerful men in the media - when the News Corp butterfly flaps its wings, a tornado bursts over the media landscape somewhere. As head of News Corp he has been... more
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook founder
As founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg topped the Agenda Setters list in 2007 after the social network really took off, but he plummeted to 47 last year as judges felt his time had passed.... more
Barack Obama
US President
US President Barack Obama entered the White House with a pledge to use technology to transform government. Since then the BlackBerry-loving President has made a start on realising his promise to... more
Tim Berners-Lee
Father of the world wide web
While last year's Agenda Setters' winner might have slipped to number eight this year, if anything he is playing an even greater role in the world of technology in 2009. The inventor of the world... more
Nandan Nilekani
Head of the Unique Identification Authority of India and co-founder of Infosys
Most people would be satisfied with being a co-founder of the Indian outsourcing giant Infosys and a foundation member of the World Economic Forum. But this year Nilekani will embark on what is... more
Larry Ellison
Oracle CEO
As CEO of Oracle, Ellison hasn't made it onto the Agenda Setters list as much as you might expect. He last appeared at number 14 in 2007, with 2003 being his most recent appearance before that. ... more
Best of the rest
11. Niklas Zennström
Co-founder of Skype, Joost, Joltid, Kazaa
12. Christian Engström
Deputy chairman of the Swedish Pirate Party
13. Lord Stephen Carter
Former Communications, Technology and Broadcasting Minister
14. Dave Girouard
President, Google Enterprise
15. Vivek Kundra
US federal CIO
16. John Suffolk
Government CIO
17. Matt Mullenweg
Founder of Automattic
18. Nicholas Negroponte
Founder of One Laptop Per Child
19. John Chambers
CEO of Cisco
20. Linus Torvalds
Father of Linux
21. Shai Agassi
Better Place founder
22. Daniel Ek
Co-founder, Spotify
23. Ashley Highfield
Managing director and VP of consumer and online, Microsoft UK
24. Erik Huggers
Director of BBC Future Media and Technology division
25. Craig Venter
Father of genomics
26. Elon Musk
Serial tech entrepreneur
27. Karen Price
CEO of e-skills UK
28. Dr Robert Atkinson
President of Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
29. Stephen Wolfram
Creator of the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine
30. Martha Lane Fox
Champion for Digital Inclusion in the UK government
31. Padmasree Warrior
Cisco CTO
32. George Osborne
Shadow chancellor
33. Chris Anderson
Wired editor, author of 'The Long Tail'
34. Marc Benioff
CEO, Salesforce.com
35. Stephen Fry
Geek, blogger and performer
36. Deron Beal
Freecycle founder
37. Mike Lynch
Founder and CEO of Autonomy
38. Tom Steinberg
Founder of mySociety.org
39. Marten Mickos
Former CEO, MySQL
40. James Cameron
Hollywood director
41. Jim Whitehurst
CEO, Red Hat
42. Gary McKinnon
Accused Nasa hacker
43. Richard Stallman
Open software guru
44. Warren East
ARM CEO
45. Michael Dell
Dell CEO
46. Vineet Nayar
HCL Technologies CEO
47. Ray Kurzweil
Inventor and futurist, Singularity University chancellor
48. Michael A Cusumano
Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management
49. Chris Hyman
CEO of Serco Group
50. Duncan Watts
Principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research
