Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, tops the Forbes list of 25 global game changers, ahead of top business honchos such as Evan Spiegel, co-founder of Snap, Larry Fink, co-founder of BlackRock, Ken Frazier, CEO of Merck and Mohammed bin Salman, deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
The list consists of people who are "transforming their industries and changing the lives of billions of people around the globe."
Ziv Aviram and Amnon Shashua, co-founders of camera-based assisted-driving systems provider Mobileye, and Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of messaging platform Slack occupy the second and third slots in the list.
The list has business leaders from eight different countries apart from six immigrants to the US.
"We started by screening hundreds of companies for growth, innovation and global footprint. Business leaders had to run for-profit operations with a market value of at least $1 billion. Ultimately, we selected trailblazers at 25 companies based on the ingenuity of their ideas and the ability to bring about change," Forbes said.
Listing Ambani's achievements and profile, Forbes said: "Oil and gas tycoon entered the country's telecom market with a bang, offering fast internet at dirt-cheap prices. Gained 100 million customers in six months and set off a wave of consolidation in the market."
Ambani's track-record of being a successful industrialist got a boost last year with Reliance Jio's foray into India's intensely-competitive mobile telephony.
Mukesh Ambani holds 36.15 lakh shares in Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), while his mother Kokilaben Ambani has 73 lakh shares. Mukesh's wife has 33.98 lakh shares in RIL.
