By Loy Okezie
In the June 2010 edition of Fast Company magazine (page 76), the second annual ranking of “The 100 Most Creative People in Business” ranks Nigeria’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Timbuktu Media Publisher, Dele Olojede as the 66th Most Creative Person in Business for 2010.
From Google to Gaga, Apple to Architecture, Facebook to Fashion, Fast Company counts down the most influential and surprising executives, artists, and impresarios crafting our culture–and our future.
According to Fast Company’s Editor, Robert Safian, “The selections we’ve made reflect the breadth of new ideas and new pursuits at play in our business landscape”.
They are people like cover subject Soraya Darabi (page 96), who dragged The New York Times into the age of social media; Patrick Awuah, who founded Ashesi University in Ghana; Franklin Leonard of Universal Pictures, whose Black List has spawned multiple Oscars; and White House CTO Beth Simone Noveck, who’s bringing transparency into government.
Here’s a list of the Top 10 Most Creative People in Business:
- Lady Gaga. The music phenom cultivates her brand with near-military rigor–wooing not just fans but also execs from Polaroid to HP.
- Eddy Cue. Steve Jobs may hold the limelight, but it’s Cue who led the creation of iTunes and the App Store.
- Elizabeth Warren. The chair for the Congressional Oversight Panel is pushing to make consumer financial protection a reality.
- Shiro Nakamura. Nissan’s design chief is ready to wow the world with the first global mass-market electric car, due later this year.
- Ryan Murphy. His idiosyncratic vision is behind the wildly successful Glee.
- Steve Burd. The Safeway chief is injecting new ideas for health reform into corporate America.
- Chris Anderson. He’s transformed TED, the ideafest that attracts luminaries in technology, entertainment, and design, from mere conference to cultural juggernaut.
- Hannah Jones. She’s helping make Nike a leader in sustainability.
- James Cameron. In a word, Avatar.
- Qi Lu. The Bing chief is overcoming entrenched regimes at Microsoft to provide a spark.
Fast Company’s second annual ranking of The 100 Most Creative People in Business excludes anyone featured in the magazine in the past, including all 2009 honorees. The result is a whole new class of on-the-rise creatives, from Asia to Africa, Europe to the Americas.
See the full list here.
Loy Okezie is a digital marketing strategist and start-up analyst based in Lagos. He regularly writes about companies and their use of new and emerging technologies in both local and international blogs, websites and newspapers. You can follow him on Twitter.