Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-12-07)

There was a joke on Twitter
this fall: Decades from now,
Ph.D. candidates in history will
specialize in a particular day
from 2020. Which is to say
this year was, uh, big. Covid, a
reckoning on race, and a U.S.
election made compiling the
fourthannualBloomberg 50
easier in ways (many people
are doing notable things) and
harder in others (many people
are doing notable things).
Here are a few rising
above 2020’s high bar in
our look at the people in
business, entertainment,
finance, politics, and science
and technology whose
accomplishments merit
recognition: Aurora James
(page 44) got retailers to
pledge 15% of their shelf
space to Black-owned brands
in thewakeofGeorgeFloyd’s
death,andTimBray(page63)
quit his executive job at
Amazon.com to protest the
firing of workers who’d raised
concernsaboutCovid.The
presidentofTaiwan(page74)
kept the pandemic under
control, and when Australian
wildfiresraged,comedian
CelesteBarber(page50)
raisedmillionsinrelief.
Check out page 75 for
alums of our list whose 2020
efforts also deserved a nod.
To see who might appear on
next year’s Bloomberg 50,
turn to page 76—though we’d
be lying if we said we could
predict the next few days, let
alone 2021.

CELESTE BARBER

BAIJU BHATT &

VLADIMIR TENEV

MOHAMMED BIN

ZAYED AL NAHYAN

THE BLACK LIVES MATTER

CO-FOUNDERS

BONG JOON-HO

TIM BRAY

MADISON CAWTHORN

SARAH COOPER

THE COVID

TRACKING PROJECT

BILLIE EILISH

ODUNAYO EWENIYI &

DAMILOLA ODUFUWA

ANTHONY FAUCI

GUY FIERI

JOHN FOLEY

JANE FRASER

THE FRONT-LINE WORKERS

KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA

JAMES GORMAN

ABDALLA HAMDOK

REED HASTINGS

JASON HEHIR

ALAN HOWARD

AURORA JAMES

LETITIA JAMES

JEONG EUN KYEONG

COLIN KAEPERNICK

LINDA KIRKPATRICK

AYA KYOGOKU &

HISAHI NOGAMI

LUIS LACALLE POU

DONNA LANGLEY

FORREST LI

STRIVE MASIYIWA

RENEE MONTGOMERY

MARCUS RASHFORD

BYJU RAVEENDRAN

MARIA RESSA

KELLER RINAUDO

JOHN ROBERTS

GWYNNE SHOTWELL

SUMIT SINGH

SPECIAL PURPOSE

ACQUISITION

COMPANIES

SWIZZ BEATZ &

TIMBALAND

TSAI ING-WEN

SVIATLANA

TSIKHANOUSKAYA

THE VACCINE CHASERS

VIYA

WANG XING

DARRIN WILLIAMS

ZENG YUQUN

CHANGPENG ZHAO

BUSINESS

ENTERTAINMENT

FINANCE

POLITICS

SCIENCE &

TECHNOLOGY