No. 25 Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO, Huawei Technologies
Last year's position: 18
Why? Breaking out of China
Ren Zhengfei is transforming Huawei from a Chinese telecoms and networking giant into a global giant - without selling out to a Western brand.
He's winning the low-cost game of a commoditised market and is passing on those savings to telcos and users - and is causing Cisco many a sleepless night.
Zhengfei is also among the few in today's telecoms space to invest heavily in research and development - nearly half of his 22,000 employees are devoted to this task - and has snagged a number of major contracts including a piece of BT's $20bn 21CN network.
Down a few notches from last year's Agenda Setters list, this former officer of the People's Liberation Army is still a driving force in his arena - and his influence, our panel bets, will only increase as the company completes its expansion into Europe and the Americas.
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the Agenda Setters poll over the years:
"Ray Ozzie is a radical change force for Microsoft. He is moving them in a very different direction."
--Richard Sykes, Agenda Setters panellist
"My observation is that [kids today] are far more networked and open than any other generation we have ever seen."
--Peter Cochrane, Agenda Setters panellist
The world's most powerful women Forbes.com
Smart 50 - Asia's best users of IT ZDNet Asia
Chron 500 - The San Francisco Bay Area's top public companies San Francisco Chronicle
The 50 people who matter now Business 2.0
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