25 most powerful people in business

Had Lakshmi Mittal, 57, remained in his native India and joined the family steel company, odds are he'd merely be a prosperous local businessman. Instead he set out on his own and became the Andrew Carnegie of our era, with operations in more than 60 countries, 320,000 employees - and a personal fortune of more than $40 billion. He built his empire on a bet that steel had a great future for someone who could achieve sufficient scale. After purchasing former state-owned companies in Eastern Europe, Mittal bought into the U.S. in 2004 and last year won a bruising battle for Europe's Arcelor. Today his company is three times the size of its nearest competitor, and Mittal has become a symbol of globalization. --Peter Gumbel