From, In and Around the Middle East The "It" List

Power Lists Are So Over

Magazines, newspapers, entire books and now blogs, have done them for decades. Everyone does them now. You can’t get through 50 channels with-out seeing some Funniest, Hottest or Power list. They suck you in. However, as you dig deep into the DNA of each list, you discover that “power” simply tells you who’s in charge. It doesn’t tell you who’s moving the meter, and seldom does it tell you the people in, around or from the Middle East who are shaking things up. ALO decided to go in search of the people who are making a difference, making an impact with ideas and action. Some of the choices are obvious, while others will surprise you. However you slice it, their inventive, artistic, risky and rebellious plans are changing the landscape of today’s world.

So now ALO reveals who has “it” and who’s influencing the world because of “it” with our Top 10.

#1 His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai

No other leader consistently gets the “There’s no way we’re not going to be the #1 Tourist Destination in the World even if we are in the Middle East!” look on his face than Maktoum. Only months after 9/11 in Dubai, with hotel rooms empty worldwide and travel agents fearing that the Middle East would be swallowed up, His Highness was pushing the Palm Jumeirah project forward (see #7 below). Tourism was on the verge of imploding, and he wouldn’t allow it to happen. He raised everyone else to a higher place.

You feel for him for this reason: Dubai’s a desert sinkhole without him, a rich land whose natural resources are due to run out in 20 or so years. Alas, that’s where Dubai would be. He’s the most striking leader in the world, the guy with the best chance of reinventing every concept of lifestyle by himself, a force of imagination unlike anything we’ve seen since Disney or Edison, someone who spawned more debate, hope and general intrigue than perhaps anyone we’ve ever witnessed.

What he did can’t be measured by statistics; it can’t even be calculated in a few paragraphs like the article you’re reading right now. He transformed the culture of a region. He taught everyone to care about the Middle East.

Cutting through all of the hyperbole, Maktoum has raised his own bar so high that anything less than total dominance seems to be disappointing. Oh, well, such is the price of greatness.

#2 Her Royal Highness Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan of Jordan

One day we’ll remember her for carrying the torch of women’s rights across the Middle East, turning Jordan into a center for technology, carrying herself with grace and aplomb in and out of the palace and fascinating us with a fantastic British/Middle Eastern accent.

Of course, her resume goes deeper than first impressions. It might take an entire issue of ALO to fully list her accomplishments, so let’s cut through it and say there’s a difference between genuine affection for country and duty (the way HH Sumaya does it) and contrived affection (the way some unnamed royals go about it). And over everything else, that’s why she gets the #2 spot on our ballot. She’s the heart and soul of everything she touches. In fact, the most interesting thing about her life is how vociferously her family supports her and how down-to-earth she is.

#3 Carlos Slim Helú, Communications Mogul

When you look at the top three billionaires (as ranked by “Forbes” magazine) you see Warren Buffett (#1), Slim (#2) and Bill Gates (#3), and a mind-boggling factoid: all are self-made. Born in Mexico and son of a Lebanese immigrant, Slim was on the road to fortune when he bought Mexico’s fixed line operator Telmex in a 1990 privatization. Now an absolute staple in the arduous wireless business, he navigated a deal with Yahoo and his Movil software company to provide mobile Web to 16 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Today, he holds in his inner circle an enormous eight percent of Mexico’s GDP! We’ve never understood a rich guy who doesn’t give back, and apparently neither does Slim. In recent years, he’s single-handedly revitalized Mexico City’s downtown historical district and various education and health projects within the country with over $7 billion in cash and stock donations.

#4 Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.

Who would have thought that an American clothing company would be leading the pack for cultural diversity?

Just as Benetton did in the 80’s with the diversity ad campaign uniting the African-American and Caucasian-American communities, Kenneth Cole is leading the way with its 25th anniversary ads across many platforms.

Reminding us of the necessities of cultural equality and the rise of diversity, this campaign is comprised of a series of 11 emotionally arresting photographs that celebrate people and relationships. Each photograph features the tagline, “We All Walk in Different Shoes.” The focus is real people who live their lives in a non-uniform way—either by their own choice or through circumstance. By integrating these compelling people of substance into Kenneth Cole’s fashion campaign, the hope is to dispel all forms of social prejudices, while also exemplifying diversity. The campaign, shot by famed photographer Terry Richardson, who notably captures the raw essence of his subjects, shows people who have a point of difference and who live their lives in an unconventional way.

One of the campaign’s ads focuses on Dror Shaul and Hany Abu-Assad, Israeli and Palestinian film directors, who are collaborators and friends. Palestinian Abu-Assad, famous for the Academy Awards nominated Best Foreign Film “Paradise Now,” and Israeli Shaul are featured in the Kenneth Cole campaign, which embodies one of the most significant recent phenomena in technology, business and now the fashion world.

This phenomenon is complex and well documented, but the notable thing here is the trend towards creating a better world. We live on a planet of infinitely diverse interests, and the eccentricity of thoughts and opinions will only grow more diverse in a way that still makes for peace and productivity. This may seem like a contradiction, but the campaign demonstrates beautifully that in fact, over time, the world grows relatively smaller and smaller.

#5 Angelina Jolie

We remember working with the publicists after the 2006 Lebanon-Israel conflict, war, or whatever they were calling it. We were brainstorming on which celebrities to approach to help raise funds for victims of the fighting. The first thing we were told was that in the world of entertainment, for those who would help such a cause, it could be the equivalent of career suicide. We were stopped at many levels but rolled on. All of us watched Angelina Jolie move forward as few leaders would, as a United Nations goodwill ambassador, traveling the world (over 20 countries) to help refugees.

This is the same Angelina Jolie who has won an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. The same actress married to hunky Brad Pitt and hounded by paparazzi, reporters and probably stalkers on a daily basis.

Ten years from now, she’ll probably be the first star from today’s current crop of actors that pops into your head. Why? Because in the grand scheme of life, when she had to choose between helping those who need it and worrying about the perception of the media and people at large, Jolie choose humanity, career suicide be damned.

According to Angelina

There’s lots of goodwill and lots of discussion, but there seems to be just a lot of talk at the moment. What happens in Iraq and how Iraq settles in the years to come is going to affect the entire Middle East. And a big part of what it’s going to affect, how it settles, is how these people are returned and settled into their homes and their communities and brought back together and whether they can live together and what their communities look like.

—Excerpt from an Angelina Jolie interview aired on CNN.

#6 Chris Nassif, Hollywood Talent Executive

His is the one name on our list almost guaranteed not to have any Q Score in the general public, but behind the scenes, the name Chris Nassif opens doors.

Nassif’s Diverse Talent Agency, with clients like Ricky Martin (“La Vida Loca”), Delta Burke (“Designing Women”) and Josh Holloway (“Lost”), has just been ranked #8 in the “Los Angeles Business Journal’s” list of talent providers.

Twenty-seven years ago, Nassif was a USC graduate with no money and a lot of ambition. “There were a lot of people betting on me to fail,” he says. “I learned quickly to believe in myself, find my staying power and never give up.”

Convincing former Sony boss Tommy Mottola to take notice and crossover Ricky Martin to the American mainstream made Nassif the industry’s most unstoppable big man, but he refused to let it go to his head, breaking the mold of the nasty cutthroat agent (ala Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold character on “Entourage”). “Some agents have such a large emotional deficit that they try to use threats to get their way. That’s not me,” he explains.

It’s hard to imagine any agent giving away secrets, but Nassif says there’s a formula for actors that really sizzle over the long haul: “There are actors who act because they love it and money is not important. They do it for the passion and art. They aren’t looking for fame. Then there are actors who seek adornments and money to satisfy some void they have inside. I’ll take the one who loves the art any day.”

One thing’s for sure, if you have the talent, Nassif’s going to get you your props.

#7 Nakheel Corporation, The Quiet Giant

Did you know, Nakheel

• is the world’s largest developer of privately held real estate, including the mind-boggling Palm Jumeirah, the Palm Deira and the World Islands?

• has more than $30 billion’s worth of projects spread over more than 2 billion sq. ft. of land that will provide residence for a population of approximately 2.5 million under their umbrella?

• has launched a division to develop golf courses that are eco-friendly and follow environmentally sensitive principles and practices, using only water desalinated from the sea that will not affect local consumption?

And by the way, say your country’s ruler throws out some high level ideas like: “Let’s do some building. I have in mind a trilogy of man-made islands that take the shape of a cultural icon (the Palm Jumeirah) and a collection of private islands that form a map of the continents of the world (top, right) and while we are at it, throw in the world’s largest waterfront development (Dubai waterfront). It’s going to add over 1,000 kilometers of beach to our coastline. Can you do it?” How would you go about doing it?

Well, Nakheel did it, and those imaginative accountant’s dream numbers don’t even begin to interpret their general impact on Dubai’s vision for the twenty-first century—to create a world-class destination for business and tourism.

In a matter of a decade, Nakheel became a true superstar who sells out developments in days.

#8 Middle Eastern Entertainment

Amr Diab, Haifa Wehbe, Nancy Ajram

It wasn’t long ago that the only thing you heard on radios throughout the Middle East was heart-wrenching ballads by famed crooners Fairouz and Oum Kalthoum. Today is different. The music of Nancy Ajram, Haifa Wehbe, Amr Diab and Elissa is everywhere. Three channels on the Dish, DJ mixes at New York’s biggest American nightclubs, multi-million dollar concert grosses in Las Vegas, mega deals with Pepsi and Coca- Cola, even Jay-Z’s controversial sampling of Abdel Halim Hafez’s song “Khosara.”

In person, their stage skills, interaction with frenzied multi-national crowds and incredible looks stand out to the point that any non-Arabic music fan could watch them for 10 minutes and realize how special they are.

Can American radio be far behind? Bet on it.

#9 Tiger Woods

Long before Dubai became the Disneyland of architecture and a place tourists and business leaders circled on the map as a must see, Woods was there showcasing his world-class skills at the Dubai Desert Classic and giving it the credibility of a top notch tournament. Now instead of sportswriters and fans asking where it is, they are asking, “When can I go?”

How many personalities can do that? Keep thinking, though the list has only one name on it.

This champ’s dominance of the golf world lends credibility to virtually everything he touches, including The Tiger Woods Dubai—a private residential community and resort that will include the world’s first golf course designed by Woods himself.

Woods’s take on this exclusive community, scheduled for completion in late 2009 and located over an area of 55 million sq. ft., is decidedly understated: “This community will be a genuine oasis for those lucky enough to live or stay within its spectacular grounds.” His groundbreaking creation includes the centerpiece golf course Al Ruwaya, a destination spa, a professionally staffed golf academy and a boutique hotel, along with 22 palaces, 75 mansions and 100 luxury villas.

Golf’s most memorable star is determined to make a bigger name for himself in specialty real estate with a kicker: he chose the Middle East to do it in. We need more Tigers in the world.

#10 Zaha Hadid, Architect and Interior Designer

After hundreds of competitions, projects and exhibitions from Chicago to Copenhagen to Hong Kong and back to London logged on her odometer, London-based, Baghdad-born architect Zaha Hadid is just hitting her stride as a visionary who always seems to push the blueprint of architecture and urban design.

Spurred by winning the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize—the first woman to do so—her spatial concepts with intense urban landscapes are more and more making everyone’s must have list. What’s her secret? Is she smarter than other designers, or maybe she’s a better leader? She’s insanely competitive and knows how to pick her spots to create some of the most unexpectedly entertaining projects. Nobody captures the attention of the art and architecture world as well as she does, nobody commands more respect and you’ll never forget her design. There’s not another architect quite like her. Even the Guggenheim Museum in New York loves her and gave her a 2006 retrospective spanning her entire work.