Suntop Media has released what it considers to be the top 50 business management leaders for 2005. The Biannual Thinkers 50 list has named Michael Porter of Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness as the most influential living management thinker of 2005.

Thinkers 50 was first started in 2001 and ranks each business management leader after gathering votes from more than 1200 business people, consultants, academics and MBA students worldwide. After cutting the list back to 80 management gurus, they are ranked according to a range of criteria. They include:

1. The originality of the Ideas of each management thinker.
2. How practical are the Ideas, and have the idea been successfully implemented?
3. Presentation style of ideas.
4. How the leader presents his thoughts and ideas in writing.
5. Loyalty of those that follow the ideas of the manager and how successfully they implement them.
6. Business sense and how successfully they implement their ideas in their own companies.
7. Do they have an international outlook?
8. Are their ideas well researched?
9. Have their ideas affected the way other leaders manage or think about management?
10. Guru factor asks if they have what it takes to be a management Guru!

Coming in at number 2 after Harvard Business School's Michael Porter is the new and improved Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. His image turnaround of recent years has transformed him from the Monty Burns of business management into being voted second on a living manager guru list, and being voted Person of the Year by the Time magazine for 2005. All this while still keeping his number one position as the World's Richest Man.

The top 20 Business Management Thinkers for 2005 include:

1 Michael Porter - Harvard Business School (2) = Previous position
2 Bill Gates - Microsoft (20)
3 CK Prahalad - University of Michigan’s Business School (12)
4 Tom Peters - Tom Peters Group (3)
5 Jack Welch - Former General Electric CEO (8)
6 Jim Collins - Good to Great author (10)
7 Philip Kotler - Marketing expert (6)
8 Henry Mintzberg - Business management author (7)
9 Kjell Nordstrom Jonas Ridderstrale - Stockholm School of Economics (21)
10 Charles Handy - Business writer, lecturer and consultant (5)
11 Richard Branson - Virgin founder and entrepreneur (34)
12 Scott Adams - Dilbert cartoonist (27)
13 Thomas A. Stewart - Columnist (37)
14 Gary Hamel - Business Author (4)
15 Chan Kim & Renee Maugorgne - (31)
16 Kenichi Ohmae - Japanese management strategist (19)
17 Patrick Dixon - Chairman of Global Change (46)
18 Stephen Covey - Business Author (16)
19 Rosabeth Moss Kanter - Harvard Business School professor (9)
20 Edward De Bono - Author (35)

See the full list at the Thinkers50 website.