Reuters/Second Life Davos Interview Biographies
By Adam Reuters
Arianna Huffington
Editor, HuffingtonPost.com
Arianna Huffington is an author, columnist, radio host and founder of the Huffington Post blog. She once ran for governor of California as an independent, and has written several books including last year’s “On Becoming Fearless.” The Huffington Post, founded in 2005, is one of the most popular blogs on the Web.
Richard Edelman
CEO, Edelman PR
Richard Edelman is the head of the world’s biggest public relations firms. During his tenure the company has created the Edelman Trust Barometer to measure the public’s trust in global institutions, and embraced blogging as a means of communications for itself and its clients.
Peter Gabriel is a musician, activist and entrepreneur. His hits include “In Your Eyes” and “Sledgehammer,” and he was the founding lead singer of Genesis. He also founded one of the first online music download services, OD2, in 2000.
John Battelle
Author, The Search
Author and entrepreneur John Battelle is a co-founder of Wired and the Industry Standard, and now runs the Federated Media blog empire. Last year he wrote “The Search” about Google and the booming online search advertising sector.
John B. Osborn
President and Chief Executive Officer, BBDO New York
Osborne is the head of leading ad agency BBDO New York, home to clients such as GE and FedEx. The youngest boss in the agency’s history, he spearheaded the “New York Miracle” campaign that ran after 9/11.
Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Founder, easyJet; Chairman, easyGroup
Stelios kickstarted the low-cost aviation revolution when he founded easyJet and has since created an empire under the easy brand, including car rental, hotel, cruise ship and Internet access businesses.
Mark R. Warner
Governor of Virginia (2002-2006)
Gov. Warner, a former investor in the mobile phone company Nextel, was the first major politician to campaign in Second Life. He is expected to play a large role in the 2008 elections through his political action campaign, Forward Together.
(Gov. Warner did not show up for his interview.)
The biotech firm Aresa has created a bio-engineered plant that changes color in the presence of land mines.
Gavin Newsom
Mayor, San Francisco
Newsom was elected mayor 2003 after a tight election, with help of A-list politicians like Bill Clinton. He achieved national publicity in 2004 when he issued a directive to the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Mitch Kapor
Founder, Lotus Development; Chairman, Linden Lab
Mitch Kapor founded Lotus Development Corp and created the groundbreaking Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. He was also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and is an early investor in Second Life creator Linden Lab, where he is also chairman.
Sorrell, known for making closely-followed pronouncements about the health of the advertising market, is the chief executive of WPP, the world’s second-largest advertising and marketing firm.
Maurice Lévy
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Publicis Groupe
Maurice Levy runs one of the world’s biggest advertising companies, home to agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi. Two Publicis agencies — and Leo Burnett and BBH — were the first ad agencies to establish a presence in Second Life.
Fareed Zakaria
Editor, Newsweek International
Fareed Zakaria is an author, journalist and editor of Newsweek International. In essays like “Why They Hate Us” and his recent book “The Future of Freedom,” he has written about the interplay between illiberal democracies in the Middle East, religious extremism and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Niklas Zennstrom
Founder, Sypke, Kazaa
Zennstrom has changed forever two industries with the disruptive peer-to-peer companies Kazaa and Skype. Now he has trained his sites on television with a new start-up, Joost.
