Some of the executives on Juniper Research's list of Top Technology Leaders, Influencers, and Visionaries for 2015 are the names you would expect, but others wield their power a little bit more quietly. Not every person who made the list holds the top job at his or her company and not every top influencer works at a top-tier, front-of-mind brand for the public.
To create its list Juniper ranked leaders using eight criteria (in its words):
1. Innovation: How new, differentiated and disruptive their contributions are to the industry.
2. Scalability: How easily their contribution can be applied to multiple markets and product types.
3. Reach: How much impact does this person and their contribution have on a geographical scale?
4. Business Model: The crunch side of innovation; how new is the business proposition of the person's contribution.
5. Personal Capital: How much the person's individual connections, personality, philosophy, etc., is able to complement their business.
6. Outside Impact: The probable impact that the person's contributions will have on their sector outside the growth of their business.
7. End-user Impact: How big a difference the contribution will make to the lives of end users.
8.Vision: How complete a picture of the future the person can make. Do they make a convincing case for the applicability and/or potential of their product?
Using those criteria, Juniper created a list that shows the executives who have the most impact -- a surprising mix of names you know and less-famous leaders. It's a ranking as notable for who did not make it as who did. You won't see Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL ) Tim Cook or Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN ) Jeff Bezos, and none of Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG ) (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) top executives made the top five.
1. Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Nadella taking the top spot not only marks a triumph for him but a victory that shows just how much he has changed Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) . The CEO has taken a company that had grown staid and complacent and transformed it. Microsoft is no longer a dying king clinging to a shrinking kingdom. Instead, it's a company with dynamic ideas, which makes its signature products available across all platforms, not just its own Windows operating system.
In his short time at the helm Nadella has created a more nimble Microsoft and delivered a new vision for company. He has pushed the company into the cloud and has led the creation of a new version of Windows that has actually sparked excitement. Nadella has made Microsoft a tech leader, pulling it from the brink of being a dying company relying on legacy products.
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