Top 10 influential business leaders to follow in 2023

With changing times, companies come and go. There are only some that remain to change the world for good. The secret behind such successful businesses is their leadership. Having a great leader at the helm is something that all investors, consumers, and employees want. If you also want to prosper and thrive in the coming year, take cues from these influential business leaders that are changing the world.

1. Patricia Narayan: Director of Sandeepha Chain of Restaurants

Celebrated as a self-made entrepreneur and famous restaurateur in India, Patricia Narayan dealt with several hardships, including a bad marriage. She was a single mother with no support, who transformed her life to become the boss of a well-known chain of restaurants today. 

2. Richard Branson: Founder of Virgin Group

At a very young age, the founder of Virgin Group dropped out of school to pursue his goals. Richard Branson, who is dyslexic, funded his first business, Virgin Records, with less than $2,000 and later expanded his business to include airlines, gyms, and a music label.  

3. Shiv Nadar: Founder of HCL Infosystems

Founder of HCL Infosystems, started by selling calculators and microcomputers. Soon his company grew and expanded to Singapore and the Far East. Ever since, Shiv Nadar’s company has continued to grow, making him a billionaire. 

4. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: Founder of Biocon

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw started her company Biocon in a rented shed and grew it into India’s largest listed biopharma firm in terms of revenue. The founder of Biocon is one of India’s wealthiest self-made women. 

5. Ursula Burns: Former CEO of Xerox

Ursula Burns was the CEO of Xerox from 2009 to 2016. She is known for serving on the board of directors on multiple large American companies, including Uber, American Express, and ExxonMobil. With her hard work and dedication, she currently is one of the most powerful woman in the world. 

6. Jack Dorsey: Former CEO of Twitter

Co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, as well as a co-founder and the CEO and chairperson of Block, started working as a programmer. He later got serious about his idea of a short message communication service. Thereafter, Dorsey created a simple site where users could instantly post short messaged called ‘tweets’ of 140 characters or less. This became an instant hit, making Jack Dorsey one of the most successful people.  

7. Larry Page and Sergey Brin: Founders Of Google

Google, a rather rudimentary search engine, was founded in 1998. It not only changed the entire internet landscape but also the world. All thanks to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who made finding anything possible and easy. 

8. Gautam Shantilal Adani: Founder of Adani Group

Leaving Mukesh Ambani behind, the founder of Adani Group, Gautam Shantilal Adani, became the richest man in India. He is known to be a hardworking businessman, who didn’t inherit the fortune from his father. Instead, he worked hard to change his fate.  Adani founded the Adani group in 1988, which has now emerged as a conglomerate. 

9. Adar Poonawalla: CEO of Serum Institute of India

The Vaccine Man of India, Adar Poonawalla is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Serum Institute of India. His father Dr Cyrus Poonawalla founded Serum Institute in 1966, which has now grown into the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by the number of doses produced.

10. Reed Hastings: Founder of Netflix

Founder and CEO of the subscription streaming service Netflix began his career at Adaptive Technology, where he created a tool that debugs software. In 1997, Hastings co-founded a business model based on mail-order subscriptions by taking advantage of DVDs and the internet. after several transformations, in 2021 Netflix had over 214 million subscribers worldwide.