How influential or think tankers this year? Well, only one think tanker, Walter Isaacson, made the list. Isaacson, President & CEO of the Aspen Institute, made the list because of his biography on Steve Jobs, not because of his think tank connection. AEI scholar Charles Murray was up for consideration but did not make this year's cut.
Also, Spanish chef José Andrés made the list. His ThinkFoodGroup has a "think tank" called ThinkFoodTank which is described like this:
ThinkFoodTank conducts research and development efforts with a highly talented group of chefs and Food & Beverage professionals focused on new products, culinary concepts, education and training, and philanthropic work.Foreign Policy magazine, which the Washington Post purchased from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) in 2008, has its own list called Top 100 Global Thinkers, the most recent one which was released in December 2011. That list is much more DC-centric and includes several think tankers, including:
- Lester Brown, Founder & President of the Earth Policy Institute & Founder of Worldwatch Institute
- Tyler Cowen, General Director of the Mercatus Center; Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute
- Arvind Subramanian, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) and CGD
- Nancy Birdsall, President of the Center for Global Development (CGD) & PIIE Ex-Officio
- Carmen Reinhart, Senior Fellow at PIIE
- Jared Cohen, Director of Google Ideas & Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
- Joseph Nye, Trustee at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)
Vanity Fair's Next Establishment list has two think tankers on the most recent list (if you include the State Department's internal think tank).
- Jared Cohen, Director of Google Ideas & Adjunct Senior Fellow at CFR
- Jake Sullivan, Director of the State Department's Policy & Planning Staff (i.e., the State Department's think tank)
