Microsoft CEO Nadella stars on Time cover for Most Influential 2018 issue
Software giant head joins actress Nicole Kidman, tennis champ Roger Federer and 3 others in series of portraits; is hailed for bringing cricket’s values to his company
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
Time magazine has chosen Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella for one of the covers of its 100 Most Influential People issue, in the leadership category.
For 2018, Time chose Tarana Burke, Roger Federer, Tiffany Haddish, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez and Satya Nadella to be showcased in a series of covers for the issue, and employed portrait photographer Peter Hapak for the job.
India-born Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014, bringing to the company lessons from his beloved sport cricket, where “grace comes from melding stars into a cohesive and harmonic team,” Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time, wrote in Time, explaining why Nadella was chosen for one of the covers.
“Nadella has used these principles to restore the company’s spirit of innovation,” Isaacson wrote. “Nadella also preaches the importance of empathy and making products that work reliably, traits that deepened in him when his first child was born with brain damage and his son’s life depended on linked machines running Microsoft systems.”
In the four years Nadella has been running Microsoft, the software giant’s value has increased 130 percent, Time said.
The shoot with Microsoft‘s Nadella was “very silent and intimate,” Hapak told Time Magazine. “Pausing between meetings at his office in Redmond, Wash., Nadella was ‘very concentrated, very aware of what was happening,'” Time quotes Hapak as saying.
US President Donald Trump, UK’s Prince Harry and his future wife Meghan Markle also appear in the Time “leaders” category, along with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and Canada’s Justin Trudeau.
In the artists category, Nicole Kidman was chosen for the cover, and comedian Tiffany Haddish for the “pioneers” category; Jennifer Lopez starred on the cover of the “icons” category, and tennis champ Roger Federer was chosen for the cover of the “Titans” category. Israel-born Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, was also included in the Titans category.
Israel’s Gal Gadot was also featured among Time’s pick of most influential artists.
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