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Fast Company Exclusive: The 100 Most Creative People in Business

From MIT to Google, High Fashion to Hollywood Apple's Jonathon Ive takes top spot, with Melinda Gates at No. 2

New York, May 13, 2009 - Fast Company magazine's inaugural ranking of the 100 Most Creative People in Business puts Jonathan Ive, SVP of Industrial Design at Apple, in the top spot; Melinda Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ranks No. 2. "Creativity cannot be reduced to a formula," says Fast Company editor Robert Safian. "There will no doubt be controversy over how we ended up with these 100 individuals, why certain names are missing, why one person is ranked higher - or lower - than someone else. But there is a perspective in our list: Taken in its entirety, it's a snapshot of the range and depth of creativity across our business landscape - a remarkable and perhaps surprising source of strength in these times of turmoil."

The list includes engineers from Facebook and Google, movie directors and fashion designers, architects and inventors. "We emphasized those who creativity addresses a larger issue - from the future of our energy infrastructure to the evolution of philanthropy to next-generation media and entertainment," explain the Fast Company editors, in the introduction to the list. "And while we couldn't see how lauding Steve Jobs would show much creativity, we also couldn't ignore the outsized impact Apple has had on our business culture. That's why Apple's chief designer heads our list at No. 1."

Rounding out the top 10 are Shai Agassi, CEO, Better Place; Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix; Rich Ross, President, Disney Channels Worldwide; Tero Ojanpero, EVP, Nokia; Sandy Bodecker, VP of Global Design, Nike; Michele Ganeless, President, Comedy Central; Jon Rubenstein, Executive Chairman, Palm; and James Schamus, CEO, Focus Features. For the rest of the list and rich multimedia profiles of the 100 Most Creative People in Business, go to www.fastcompany.com.

Fast Company - June 2009 - Most Creative People in Business

1. Jonathan Ive
Senior Vice President of Industrial Design- Apple

"Today, Apple represents the most successful and faithful marriage of business and design…and Ive-with an assist, of course, from CEO Steve Jobs-has been the company's lodestar in its journey to global trendsetter."

2. Melinda Gates
Co-chair, Trustee- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

"Her [Melinda's] influence over the world's largest foundation is enormous… She has championed not only big-picture, tech-oriented solutions to improve health and education over the long-term but also more modest steps to help the poorest of the poor right now."

3. Shai Agassi
Chief Executive Officer- Better Place

41-year-old Shai Agassi may not be alone in his enthusiasm about electric cars, but he may have the most ambitious vision: battery-powered cars, a network of charging station, and cell-phone-like pricing schemes.

4. Reed Hastings
Chief Executive Officer- Netflix

"Reed Hastings could have stuck with his first breakthrough idea - Netflix recently mailed its 2-billionth DVD. Instead, he's swiftly embraced streaming online and direct-to-TV via half a dozen Netflix-ready devices made by LG, Samsung, Microsoft, and others."

5. Rich Ross
President- Disney Channels Worldwide

"He [Rich Ross] has orchestrated the rise and global spread of that wildly popular, hyper, squealy, and lucrative brand of entertainment through a network of nearly 100 channels in 163 countries and 32 languages."

6. Sandy Bodecker
Vice President of Global Design- Nike

Last year, Sandy Bodecker and his team at Nike found what they were looking for in suspension-bridge cables. The result: the revolutionary Flywire technology, and the lightest and strongest high-performance footwear ever.

7. Tero Ojanperä
Executive Vice President- Nokia

"Tero Ojanperä's career path at Nokia is a map of the company's direction- from head of research, to CTO, to leading the entertainment division. Slowly, he's managing Nokia's transformation into a multimedia company."

8. Michele Ganeless
President- Comedy Central

At the command of Michele Ganeless, who championed South Park, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, Comedy Central has launched websites for all its shows as well as stand-alone sites such as Jokes.com, the largest Internet archive of stand-up videos, plus ringtones and videos from Sarah Silverman, Carlos Mencia, and Dane Cook.

9. Jon Rubenstein
Executive Chairman- Palm

"Since taking over product development at Palm, which invented the smart-phone only to be outdone by Research in Motion and Apple, [Jon Rubenstein] has poached talent from Steve Jobs and focused Palm on webOS, a long overdue new operating system, and a touch-screen smart-phone of its own, the Pre."

10. James Schamus
Chief Executive Officer- Focus Features

"Perhaps the only person in Hollywood who can rival Meryl Streep's versatility is James Schamus. In addition to being a CEO, he's a veteran screenwriter, Columbia University film professor, producer, marketer, distributor, and sometimes composer. 'There's nobody else like him in the entire industry,' says Bill Mechanic, former chairman of 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment."

11. Prith Banerjee
Director- HP Labs

"Prith Banerjee's job is to gaze into the $150 million crystal ball that is HP Labs and see what the future holds. Since he was lured away from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 2007, HP Labs has announced products such as flexible, paper-like display screens and CloudPrint which allows printing from a cell-phone"

12. John Garing
Chief Information Officer- Defense Information Systems Agency

"John Garing powwowed with such luminaries as Amazon's Werner Vogels and Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff to bring cloud computing, network services, and Web 2.0 tools to the Department of Defense."

13. Stella McCartney
Fashion Designer

"McCartney, 38, a PETA pet, uses no leather or fur; her skin-care line and ready-to-wear collection are both organic." According to her boss, PPR CEO François-Henri Pinault, she "is the new face of responsible luxury."

14. J.J Abrams
Founder- Bad Robot Productions

"J.J. Abrams warps time at will. Past, present, and future coexist as a kind of fluid that cannot be contained. The camera jumps back and forth in time. Characters age and grow younger again. Time itself accelerates, then slows. 'It's intriguing to play with exactly when you learn elements in a story,' says the Emmy-winning writer-director-producer, referring to Lost, his biggest hit on the small screen."

15. Thom Mayne
Design Director- Morphosis

"The 2005 Pritzer Prize winner [Thom Mayne] is famous for audacious buildings: the bunkerlike Caltrans District 7 Headquarters in Los Angeles that locals call the 'Death Star'; the disjointed Cahill Center at Caltech; the mesh-covered science and art center at New York's Cooper Union."

16. Dave Morin
Senior Platform Manager- Facebook

"He [Dave Morin] is Facebook's strategic thinker on the next big thing in social media- which isn't the redesign of Facebook's homepage, but identity protection on the Web."

17. Stephen Chau
Product Manager, Google Maps and Google Earth- Google

"Incorporating photos into online maps wasn't a new idea at Google, but no one had figured out how to pull it off until Stephen Chau tackled what became Street View, the company's fastest-growing product of 2008."

18. Susan Athey
Chief Economist- Microsoft

"As a kid, Susan Athey tagged along when her grandfather sold cattle at auction. 'I'd wonder, Why is this how they sell cows?' she recalls. At 38, she's now Microsoft's chief economist and a Harvard prof, asking grown-up versions of that question."

19. Trish Adams
Senior Vice President of Merchandising- Target

"Hiring boldface fashion designers to do lines for big-box retailers was an innovation born when Trish Adams signed on Mossimo for Target in 2001. Since 2006, she has lured the likes on Proenza Schouler, Luella Bartley, and Behnaz Sarafpour for the Go International cheap-chic lines, which are estimated to pull in $100 million in annual sales."

20. Dawn Danby
Sustainable Design Program Manager- Autodesk

"Autodesk, a world leader in design and engineering software best known for AutoCAD, is going long on sustainability, betting that its programs can make green building (and eventually manufacturing) effortless and ubiquitous. Danby, 31, is the company's first sustainable-design program manager, charged with leading the software development teams and driving the strategy aggressively across the company."

21. Tyler Perry
Owner- Tyler Perry Studios

"He writes, directs, produces, acts, and scores- Tyler Perry controls an entertainment empire and moneymaking machine that includes the hit show Tyler Perry's House of Payne and movies featuring his alter-ego Madea."

22. Damien Hirst
Artist

"Hate him or loathe him, Damien Hirst is an artistic and business provocateur. Who else could render a photo of Bill Gates standing in front of his own famous work and turn it into a painting that sells for more than half a million dollars?"

23. Ed Leonard
Chief Technology Officer- DreamWorks Animation

"Whether its making Shrek come alive, guiding the 20 million hours of computing time to build Kung Fu Panda, or putting the amoeba-like B.O.B into 3-D for Monsters vs. Aliens, DreamWorks' problems eventually find Ed Leonard."

24. Jil Sander
Designer, Creative Director- Uniqlo

"The high fashion/mass-marketing movement seems to be reaching a new phase with Jil Sander's latest project: The German designer, who became famous for her luxurious if minimalist couture, has signed on as the creative director for Japanese retailer Uniqlo."

25. Dietrich Mateschitz
Chief Executive Officer-Red Bull

Red Bull's success has "less to do with the drink than Mateschitz's magic in creating a corporate identity for Red Bull. From introducing the world's top skateboarders to Havana's underground skate scene to arranging a private jet to fly world-champion downhill skier Lindsey Vonn to a hand specialist after she cut a thumb tendon on a Champagne bottle, Mateschitz is blurring the lines between retailing, sports marketing, and entertainment."

26. Sheila Bair
Chairman-FDIC

"Shelia Blair's combination of foresight, consistency, effective use of resources, and sensible ideas to secure the banking system looks pretty creative- and significant- to us. Plus, her accomplishments at the FDIC prove that stars don't have to be divas."

27. Brenda L. Dietrich
Vice President, Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences- IBM

Brenda's team at IBM studies "behind-the-scenes processes in business- from manufacturing scheduling to logistics to resource management- to apply advanced mathematics to increase efficiency."

28. Kazunori Yamauchi
President- Polyphony Digital

The 42-year-old Japanese game designer, Kazunori Yamauchi, is on the fast track: "He has created eight Gran Turismo games, attracted a cult following among PlayStation users, and helped Nissan design the technology for its GT-R sports car, which appears in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue."

29. Alexandra Patsavas
Owner- Chop Shop Music Supervision

"'I've spent 14 years listening to music set to pictures,' says Alexandra Patsavas, 41, 'and I have a strong sense of how it all works together.' Her gift for matching the right song to the right scene in some of television's most talked-about shows, including Mad Men, enhances the value of the programs- and also creates opportunities for artists."

30. George Whitesides
Inventor, cofounder- Nano-Terra

"His [George Whitesides'] breakthroughs in molecular self-assembly and other production processes over a 45-year career at Harvard and MIT were a catalyst for today's proliferation of biotechnology and nanotechnology."

31. Hayao Miyazaki
Cofounder- Studio Ghibli

This giant of anime has been "elevating cartoons into epic cinematic events for more than two decades, with fantastic, award-winning films such as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. The writer-director's stories are mostly hand-drawn, with strong female characters and morally ambiguous plotlines…"

32. Lee Clow
Global director of media arts- TBWA\Worldwide

"In an industry that tends to spit out anyone with a speck of gray hair, the brain behind the Energizer Bunny, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, and Adidas's 'Impossible is Nothing' campaign continues to be one of the most creative forces in the game. Last year, as global director of TBWA\Worldwide, he [Lee Clow] helped the Omnicom-owned agency lure a phenomenal roster of new business, including Pepsi and the global Visa account."

33. Padmasree Warrior
Chief technology officer- Cisco

"With a last name like Warrior, you expect ferociousness. In fact, Padmasree Warrior is just the opposite - a humble leader who says she likes to play practical jokes on her staff."

34. Evan Williams
Chief executive officer- Twitter

"@ev Site getting more buzz than F-book. Yearly traffic up 1,200%. Estimated worth = $500 million+. Wow! #twitter"

35. Peter Sence
Founding chairman- Society for Organizational Learning

"We owe the very idea of the learning organization to management strategist Peter Senge."

36. Pharrell Williams
Musician, producer, cofounder- Billionaire Boys Club

"Pharrell Williams knows it all starts with a beat- he got his start on the snare drum in his high-school marching band back in Virginia Beach, Virginia…he has helped everyone from Britney Spears to Justin Timberlake to Madonna to the Hives find time on the charts."

37. Shai Reshef
Founder- University of the People

"College tuition in the U.S. has risen more since 1990 than the price of any other good or service. That's why Shai Reshef decided to commit his fortune- made when he sold a for-profit educational-services firm to Kaplan in 2005- to opening a tuition-free, online-only, open-source university."

38. Norman Foster
Principal- Foster + Partners

"The 73-year-old Baron Foster of Thames Bank has had as rough a year as any of his fellow starchitects: Work in Russia has tanked; his remodeling of Europe's biggest soccer stadium, Barcelona's famed Nou Camp, has been delayed; and he had to lay off more than 300 employees. But the guy who gave London its iconic "gherkin" has shown versatility far beyond big razzle-dazzle buildings."

39. Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director- BBDO

"For Greg Hahn, a self-described eavesdropping addict, being nosey isn't just a hobby. It's the weapon that has allowed the master copywriter to consistently lend human voices and emotions to huge corporations such as Citigroup, eBay, and Mars.

40. Neil Gaiman
Author, Screenwriter

"'Writing is like death, a lonely business,' according to Neil Gaiman. But the prolific wordsmith has made it a bit less so, building a global community of fans all ages and in many media, including comic books, novels, TV, and a children's novella turned 3-D movie."

41. Maurice Sendak
Writer, illustrator, producer

"The extraordinary Maurice Sendak has sold millions of copies of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen; most recently, he collaborated with Tony Kushner on Brundibar."

42. Marc Jacobs
Fashion designer- LVMH

"Marc Jacobs has 'made fashion hip, but not inaccessibly hip," says Vogue editor Anna Wintour."

43. Neri Oxman
Presidential Fellow- MIT Media Lab

"'We're playing God a little bit,' Oxman says. "We're taking a bunch of environmental constraints and throwing them into computational software and letting the computer generate the form for us'."

44. Jean- Georges Vongerichten
Chef

"In this era of celebrity chefs and haute cuisine gone less haute, Alsace-born Jean-Georges Vongerichten is the rare talent who has grown his empire without restoring to the indignity of slapping his face on a frying pan or frozen pizza."

45. Genevieve Bell
Director of User Experience- Intel Digital Home Group

"Genevieve Bell thinks about people. She travels the world studying us- how we think, how we live, and what place technology has in our lives. This year, the Stanford-educated anthropologist is doing that in her homeland, as a 'Thinker in Residence' for the government of South Australia, and she's using technology to gauge how people use technology."

46. Jim Jannard
Chief executive officer- Red Digital Cinema

"Jim Jannard is the type of obsessive freak who will pour and break the foundation for a new house a half-dozen times. And when he wants something that doesn't exist- he creates it."

47. A.R. Rahman
Composer

"You might know A.R. Rahman as the Oscar-winning composer behine Slumdog Millionaire's, 'Jai Ho,' which has been downloaded more that 100,000 times on iTunes and was re-recorded as a hit collaboration with the Pussycat Dolls."

48. Jimmy Iovine
Chairman- Interscope Geffen A&M Records

"In music, all roads lead to- and from- Jimmy Iovine"

49. Tyra Banks
Founder- Bankable Enterprises

"The former model has built a distinct brand- and media empire- by presenting herself as the fun, driven mentor to a young, multiethnic, and aspirational female demographic."

50. Lisa Ellis
Partner- Fireman Capital

At Fireman Capital, Lisa Ellis " has already launched Karnaval House Music with Wyclef Jean. They plan to use multi-platform distribution to introduce new artists and new work- music and film- from Wyclef."

51. Blaise Aguera Y Arcas
Partner Architect- MSN and Microsoft Virtual Earth

52. Kyle Cooper
President- Prologue Films

53. Sherilyn McCoy
Worldwide Chairman, Pharmaceuticals Group- Johnson & Johnson

54. Masamichi Katayama
Principal - Wonderwall

55. Gregg Gillis (AKA Girl Talk)
Mashup Artist

56. Charles Rivkin
President, Chief Executive Officer- Wildbrain

57. Susan Wu
Chief Executive Officer- Ohai

58. June Arunga
Equity Partner- Black Star Lines

59. Noah Brier
Head of Strategic Planning - Barbarian Group

60. Josh Schwartz
Television Producer, writer

61. Nora Ephron
Author, Director, Producer

62. Hussein Chalayan
Creative Director- Puma

63. Henrik Werdelin
Chief Creative Officer- Joost

64. Bart Decrem
Chief Executive Officer- Tapulous

65. Consuelo Castiglioni
Creative Director- Marni

66. Bonnie Hammer
President- NBC Universal Cable Entertainment

67. Julieanne Kost
Senior Digital-Imaging Evangelist- Adobe

68. Zaha Hadid
Principal- Zaha Hadid Architects

69. Dave Stewart
Musician and Record Producer

70. Brian Donnelly (AKA Kaws)
Artist, Designer, Owner - OrginalFake

71. Dr. Anthony Atala
Director - Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

72. Saul Griffith
Inventor, Cofounder - Mkani Power

73. Dan Barber
Executive Chef, Co-Owner- Blue Hill Restaurants

74. Gary Hustwit
Director, Founder- Plexifilm

75. Sam Houser
Cofounder - Rockstar Games

76. Piet Oudolf
Garden Designer - Future Plants

77. Joy Mangano
President- Ingenious Designs

78. David Wiley
Professor - Brigham Young University

79. Ed Ulbrich
Executive Vice President of Production - Digital Domain

80. Jane McGonigal
Director of Game R&D - Institute for the Future

81. Karin Hibma
Chief Financial Officer - Cronan

82. Michael Cronan
Chief Executive Officer- Cronan

83. Brian Eno Musician

84. Jessica Buttimer
Director, Green Works - Clorox

85. Dr. Pier Giulianotti
Chief of Minimally Invasive, General, and Robotic Surgery - University of Illinois Medical Center

86. Cai Guo-Qiang
Artist

87. Joseph Coughlin
Director - MIT's AgeLab

88. Karin Fong
Creative Director, Imaginary Forces

89. Larry Chen
Manager - T-One Design

90. Thom Beers
Chief Executive Officer, Executive Producer - Original Productions

91. Will Allen
Chief Executive Officer - Growing Power

92. Simon Collins
Dean of Fashion - Parson The New School of Design

93. Bill Bensley
Principal- Bensley Design Studios

94. Kevin Adams
Lighting Designer

95. Kohei Mishiyama
Chief Executive Officer - Elephant Design

96. John Swanson
Light-Rail Designer- Parsons Brinckerhoff

97. Richard Gelfond
Chief Executive Officer- IMAX

98. Scott Schuman
Blogger

99. Jenova Chen
Creative Director - Thatgamecompany

100. Chris Ferguson
Founder - Full Tilt Poker