Satya Nadella

Because in almost five years as its CEO, Satya Nadella has led Microsoft out of its decline – it famously missed mobile – and made the company great again by putting Cloud, mixed reality platforms and Artificial Intelligence first. He’s also profitably reversed the ideology of predecessor Steve Ballmer by getting Windows and Office applications on rival Apple and Android platforms. Because in his first days as CEO, he gave executives a copy of Marshall B. Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication and started transforming a toxic company culture that encouraged competition within Microsoft rather than with other companies. The engineer and computer scientist talks about “growth mindset” and uses Microsoft AI to stop himself emailing staff on weekends, which he calls “a classic overuse of power”.

Because Microsoft is leading the good fight against election meddling by offering the free cybersecurity service AccountGuard to candidates and political entities. The company’s Digital Crimes Unit has shut down 84 fake political sites in two years. Because, inspired by son Zain, who has cerebral palsy, Nadella has made what he calls the “interplay between empathy and technology” a mission. Microsoft’s work in diversity and disability is ongoing: a free smartphone app Seeing AI narrates the world for the blind; the Emma Watch vibrates when a Parkinson’s disease sufferer shakes, allowing that person to write. In his 2017 book, Hit Refresh, Nadella writes: “We spend far too much time at work for it not to have deep meaning.”