Mukesh Ambani, Indira Jaising Among Fortune’s 50 Greatest Leaders

The Fortune’s 2018 ranking of the 50 Greatest Leaders was released on Thursday.

Mukesh Ambani (left) and Indira Jaisingh (right) feature on Fortune’s top 50 leaders list.

(Photo: The Quint)

What is common between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Human Rights Lawyer Indira Jaising?

Apart from the fact that both feature on Fortune’s latest World’s Greatest Leaders List, both have multiplied their organisations’ effectiveness by harnessing the power of unbundling, according to the Fortune’s 50 Greatest Leaders List.

Business magnate Mukesh Ambani features on World's Greatest Leaders of 2018 list as well.

The Fortune's 2018 ranking of the 50 Greatest Leaders released on Thursday also has architect Balkrishna Doshi in the list, which includes New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and football coach Nick Saban.

Ambani, who turned 61 on 19 April, has "in less than two years, brought mobile data to the masses — and completely upended the country's telecom market", Fortune said ranking him No. 24 behind South Korean President Mon Jae-in, Chinese vice premier Liu He and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Since Ambani, chief of the USD 47 billion conglomerate Reliance Industries, launched Jio - the first mobile network in the world to be entirely IP-based - in September 2016, the company has signed up a staggering 168 million subscribers.

On Jaising, founder, Lawyers Collective, Fortune said: "When the poorest in India need a voice, they find one in Jaising, a lawyer who has dedicated her life to battling injustice." Ranked No. 20, she has fought on behalf of victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, helped Syrian Christian women in India win property rights equal to their male counterparts', and helped draft India's first domestic violence law, it said.

Her work has recently led her to Myanmar, where she was appointed by the UN to lead an investigation into the persecution of Rohingya Muslims, it said.

The World’s Greatest Leaders list started only in 2015. The past lists featured global notables like Xi Jinping, Pope Francis, Jeff Bezos, Angela Merkel, Aung San Suu Kyi, Paul Ryan, Jack Ma, Melinda Gates, Gen HR McMaster, Sen John McCain, Janet Yellen, and Justin Trudeau.

This year's list is topped by 'The Students' of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other schools of US that witnessed gun violence.

Ranking Doshi at No.43, Fortune said he is the winner of this year's Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour.

Doshi has spent the bulk of his 70-year career championing accessible housing, earning the moniker 'the architect for the poor'.

His designs include the Aranya low-cost housing project in Indore, a labyrinth of homes and courtyards that provide around 80,000 residents with a balance of open spaces and communal living, and the mixed-income Life Insurance Corporation Housing in Ahmedabad, where several generations of a family can occupy levels of the same building. Underlying all his work is the ideal that all economic classes deserve good housing.

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This year's list has the #MeToo Movement, which described the pervasiveness of sexual abuse, at No.3 behind Bill and Melinda Gates. Others on the list include tennis star Serena Williams, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, Larry Fink who leads the world's biggest fund BlackRock, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Engie CEO Isabelle Kocher, film director Ryan Coogler, Tencent CEO Huateng 'Pony' Ma, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Oprah Winfrey, Chinese environmentalist Ma Jun, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian and 42-year old actor/producer Reese Witherspoon.

Here is the complete list:

• The Students Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other schools
• Bill and Melinda Gates Cofounders, Gates Foundation
• The #MeToo Movement
• Moon Jae-in President, South Korea
• Kenneth Frazier CEO, Merck
• Scott Gottlieb FDA commisioner
• Margarethe Vestager Commissioner for Competition, European Union
• Larry Fink CEO, BlackRock
• General Joseph Dunford Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Liu He Vice Premier, China
• Mary Barra CEO, General Motors
• Nick Saban Football coach, University of Alabama
• Emmanuel Macron President, France
• Tim Cook CEO, Apple
• Serena Williams Athlete
• Isabelle Kocher CEO, Engie
• Katie Bethell Executive director, PL+US
• Ryan Coogler Film director
• Huateng “Pony” Ma CEO, Tencent
• Indira Jaising Founder, Lawyers Collective
• Marc Benioff CEO, Salesforce
• The Gymnasts and Their Allies
• Kathleen McLaughlin Chief sustainability officer, Walmart
• Mukesh Ambani Chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries
• Mick Cornett Former mayor, Oklahoma City
• Donald Hopkins Physician, the Carter Center
• Oprah Winfrey CEO, OWN
• Mitch Landrieu Mayor, New Orleans
• Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister, New Zealand
• Ma Jun Environmentalist, China
• West Virginia Teachers
• Leymah Gbowee President, Gbowee Peace Foundation
• Jamie Dimon CEO, JPMorgan Chase
• Michael Sorrell President, Paul Quinn College
• Reese Witherspoon Actor/producer
• Daniel Servitje Montull CEO, Grupo Bimbo
• Izumi Nakamitsu Undersecretary general for disarmament, United Nations
• Bashar Masri Founder, Rawabi
• Leila de Lima Senator, Philippines
• Angela Nyambura Gichaga CEO, Financing Alliance for Health
• Timothy Keller Evangelical minister/author, Redeemer City to City
• Gwynne Shotwell President and chief operating officer, SpaceX
• Balkrishna Doshi Architect, India
• Feike Sijbesma CEO, DSM
• Kelly Chibale Scientist, South Africa
• Ana Botín Group executive chairman, Banco Santander
• Dina Meza Journalist, PEN Honduras
• Ridwan Kamil Mayor, Bandung, Indonesia
• Amy Gutmann President, University of Pennsylvania
• Ed Bastian CEO, Delta Air Lines

(With inputs from PTI and Fortune)