Most powerful South Africans

Foreign Policy magazine has listed the 500 most powerful people in the world, and 8 South Africans – including President Jacob Zuma and DA leader, Helen Zille – made the cut.

The list – called the FP “Power Map” is a compilation of the top 500 people in the world who rule various fields and industries – from politics and high finance, to media, energy, warfare and religion.

The list is domiated by men and women from the USA, with the magazine noting that “Americans are still No. 1 in pretty much everything that matters. For now.”

Among the notable people listed are US politicians Barack Obama (US President), Joe Biden (US Vice President) and Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York) – and on the other side of the coin, personalities such as Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO), Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) and Tim Cook (Apple CEO).

Of the 500 listed people, 8 South Africans made the list – 9 if you include BHP Billiton CEO, Andrew Mackenzie, who is listed as South African, but is actually Scottish.

Here are the listed South African men and women:

* Not South African but listed as such

Foreign Policy distinguishes what each listed person is most notable for, splitting them into categories: force, money, politics, bully pulpit, brains, good and evil.

Methodology

“Where possible, we took a ‘list of lists’ approach, consulting the authoritative rankings for a given industry and substituting judgment where quantitative assessments do not exist,” the magazine said.

Among the sources used for the list, Foreign Policy noted that it looked at sources from Forbes, Fortune, Global Journal, Institute of Media and Communications, SIPRI, Times,Wall Street Journal and Reuters.

More lists and stories on South Africa

Tech’s youngest billionaires

Richest IT people in South Africa

South Africa’s richest people

Forbes lists Africa’s power players