10 Of The Most Impressive Personalities Of 2014

# Jack Ma

The founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma is the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes.  As of November 2014, he is the richest man in China and 18th richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $29.7 billion.

He founded Alibaba in 1999, a China-based business-to-business marketplace site which currently serves more than 79 million members from more than 240 countries and territories. It is under his leadership that in September 2014, Alibaba Group became one of the most valuable tech companies in the world after raising $25 billion from its U.S. IPO.

Ma now serves as Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, which is a holding company with nine major subsidiaries – Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhuasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com and Alipay.

# Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella is the first Indian American to become the CEO of Microsoft. He was appointed as CEO on 4 February 2014, before becoming CEO of Microsoft, he was Executive Vice President of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group.

Satya Nadella was born in a Telugu chowdhary family in Ananthapuram, Andhra Pradesh, India. 

When Bill Gates was asked about Nadella’s performance, he said, “I’m very happy with what he's doing. I see a new sense of energy. There's a lot of opportunity there, some things the company isn't the leader on, and he sees that he needs to change that," reports Bloomberg.

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