Business influencers are changing the way people run their businesses today. These experts share their stories and tips online, teaching others how to reach their business goals while showing them that success is possible with the right mindset and approach.
These business leaders share real-life lessons from their own experiences, both good and bad. They come from different backgrounds – some run tech companies, others are marketing experts, and many have built their businesses from scratch. Their advice helps both people just starting out and those who already own successful businesses.
In this guide, we’ll show you the most important business influencers to follow right now. Whether you want to start a small business, grow your current company, or build your own personal brand, you’ll find someone here whose experience matches what you’re looking for. We’ll explain why people trust these influencers and what makes their advice so valuable.
Let’s explore these business leaders and see how they’re helping shape the way business works today.
10 Business Influencers to Follow
- Richard Branson – @richardbranson – 4.9M Followers
- Martha Debayle – @marthadebayle – 2M Followers
- Tim Ferriss – @timferriss – 1.6M Followers
- Saygin Yalcin – @sayginyalcin – 1.1M Followers
- Lori Greiner – @lorigreinershark – 1.2M Followers
- Marie Forleo – @marieforleo – 901K Followers
- Arianna Huffington – @ariannahuff – 779K Followers
- Amy Jo Martin – @amyjomartin – 105K Followers
- Cynthia Johnson – @cynthialive – 46.7K Followers
- Melinda Emerson – @smallbizlady – 28.5K Followers
1. Richard Branson
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Richard Branson started his first business, a magazine for students when he was just a teenager. He then created Virgin Records in the 1970s, which grew into the huge Virgin Group company. His business now includes many different things – airlines, trains, phone companies, and even a company that wants to take people into space called Virgin Galactic. What people love about Branson is that he’s not just a businessman – he enjoys adventures like racing boats and flying hot-air balloons, setting records along the way. He runs his businesses differently from most people, which has helped him build a very successful company that works in many countries. He’s also been on TV shows and won many prizes for his work.
2. Martha Debayle
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Martha Debayle is a big name in Mexican media who helps women, parents, and small businesses succeed. She runs The Media Marketing Knowledge Group (MMK Group), which includes five different brands: BBmundo, moi, The Beauty Effect, Martha Debayle, and Eugenia Debayle. Each brand helps people improve different parts of their lives. She connects with people through radio, TV, and the internet, making complicated ideas easy to understand. Her YouTube channel has more than 816,000 followers, and over 2.4 million people follow her on social media. Through her company, she helps businesses tell their stories in ways that connect with customers. She also gives speeches and creates new content to help even more people, making her one of the most trusted voices in Spanish-speaking business.
3. Tim Ferriss
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Tim Ferriss is famous for writing “The Four-Hour Work Week,” a book that shows people how to work less and achieve more. It’s been so popular that over a million people have bought it worldwide. He started by creating his own company, BrainQUICKEN, which he later sold, and now he helps fund other companies like Shopify and Evernote. He shares his ideas through his blog, five books, and his podcast “The Tim Ferriss Show,” where he talks to successful people about their best tips and tricks. People follow his advice because he makes success seem more achievable.
4. Saygin Yalcin
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Saygin Yalcin, born in Germany to Turkish parents, has built successful online businesses in the Middle East. He started SellAnyCar.com, where people can sell their cars online, and Sukar.com, the area’s first big online shopping club. He now lives in Dubai and shares business advice through his popular YouTube videos, helping others turn their business ideas into reality. He teaches at the Canadian University of Dubai and has won awards for his work in technology. Many people in the Middle East look to him as an expert in online business.
5. Lori Greiner
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Lori Greiner is famous for selling clever products on TV, especially through QVC. She started by creating a special jewelry box that people loved, which led her to invent many more useful items. So far, she’s created over 600 products and owns 120 patents for her ideas. You can see her products on her QVC show “Clever and Unique Creations,” and top magazines like The Oprah Magazine often write about them. These days, she’s also a regular judge on the TV show Shark Tank, where she helps other people turn their ideas into successful products. People call her “the warm-blooded shark” because she’s good at spotting which products will sell well. She wrote a book called “Invent It, Sell It, Bank It” to teach others how to turn their ideas into successful businesses.
6. Marie Forleo
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Marie Forleo is a teacher and coach who shows people how to succeed in business and life. She runs two companies: Marie Forleo International and B-School, where she teaches business owners simple ways to promote their work. On her online TV show, MarieTV, she shares easy-to-follow advice about being successful. She wrote a popular book that’s been published in sixteen different languages. Big names like Oprah Winfrey and Tony Robbins have invited her to talk about her ideas, and she’s helped new business owners in South Africa at Richard Branson’s business center. She stays connected with her fans through social media, where hundreds of thousands of people follow her advice.
7. Arianna Huffington
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Arianna Huffington changed the way we read news online by starting The Huffington Post, a website that became hugely successful. After running the company for years, she left to start Thrive Global, a company that helps people lead healthier lives at work. Born in Greece, she’s written 15 books and is considered one of the most powerful women in the world by magazines like Forbes and The Guardian. What makes her special is how well she handles different roles – running companies, writing books, giving speeches, and being a mom – while being successful at all of them.
8. Amy Jo Martin
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Amy Jo Martin started Digital Royalty in 2009, one of the first companies to help businesses use social media effectively. With help from Zappos boss Tony Hsieh and basketball player Baron Davis, she showed big companies and famous people how to connect better with their audiences by being more real and approachable online. She also hosts a podcast called “Why Not Now?” where she encourages people to follow their dreams. Her book “Renegades Write the Rules” became very popular by showing how breaking old business rules can lead to success. To help women in business specifically, she created Renegade Brand Bootcamp, a three-month training program that helps female business owners reach their goals. Everything she does focuses on helping others succeed by doing things differently.
9. Cynthia Johnson
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Cynthia Johnson is one of the most well-known business influencers who helps businesses and people become well-known online through her company Bell + Ivy in Santa Monica. She has been one of the top small business influencers, beginning when she worked at a company called RankLab. Magazine named it one of the quickest-growing private companies. She’s so good at digital marketing that Mashable said she was one of the best business people to follow on Snapchat, and The Guardian listed her as one of the top 20 people in search engine optimization. Now, as the boss of Bell + Ivy, she helps businesses become more popular online. She wrote a book called “Platform” in 2019 that teaches people how to build their own personal brand on the internet.
10. Melinda Emerson
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Melinda Emerson, nicknamed “SmallBizLady,” helps small business owners succeed. After watching Oprah Winfrey’s success, she quit her TV job to start her own company, Quintessence Multimedia, which creates content for big companies like Johnson & Johnson and Verizon. She really wants to help other people start their own businesses, so she runs a weekly show on Twitter called SmallBizChat. There, she talks about how to start and run a successful small business. She’s also written books, gives speeches, and coaches business owners, winning many awards for helping entrepreneurs.
Conclusion
These 10 business influencers show us different ways to succeed in the business world. Each one has special knowledge to share, whether it’s about starting a company, building a brand, or growing your business online. While learning from these experts is valuable, you might also want to find newer influencers who can help your business grow.
If you’re wondering how to find TikTok influencers or connect with other business influencers, there’s a helpful tool called Glewee. This influencer marketing platform makes it easy to find and work with influencers who match your business goals. You can start by learning from the successful people we’ve talked about here, and then use Glewee to connect with influencers who can help spread the word about your business.
