Mark of influence for a TV commercial: It has its own Wikipedia page. Such was the “Most Interesting Man in the World”campaign for Dos Equis beer, which from 2006-2018, practically a century in the ad world.
That ad was fiction, of course. It was only an ad. But it inspires a question, who is the most interesting person in the world today? A real person, that is.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy? Certainly. Elon Musk? Always. Various global dictators including … well, sadly yes. But let’s stipulate that our own most interesting person in the world must be a force for good. We therefore nominate Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, Albert Bourla.
The year 2020 was one terrible year. But it gave us two upside surprises. The first was how fast companies and people adapted to pandemic lockdowns. Historians will debate whether the lockdowns were necessary in degree and length, but in March 2020 things looked grim. Deaths soared, and the stock market’s crash warned of a years-long global recession … or worse.
Another 2020 upside surprise was the speed at which two American pharma companies, Moderna and Pfizer, developed and deployed mRNA vaccines that proved effective in (a) preventing Covid infection; or (b) in the case of Omicron, mitigating its effects.
In the race to fund, develop and deploy the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, many heroes emerged. Too many to name for this column. But surely among the more interesting is Pfizer’s Albert Bourla. He mobilized Pfizer amid some of the most strenuous conditions experienced in modern times. Bourla oversaw a normally years-long process of developing a vaccine play out in nine months. It was a riveting story of innovation, determination and ingenuity. Read his bio here.
I’ll be interviewing Bourla on the virtual onstage in early May. A wonderful feature of working at Forbes – I’m nearing my 30th anniversary – is access to interesting people like Bourla. But in the case of Bourla, it was my good friend, Vish Mishra, who arranged interview. Vish is “Silicon Valley personified” and spirit of TiE Silicon Valley, a not-for-profit organization that promotes global entrepreneurship.
TiE is built around the large, extremely innovative Indian expat community in Silicon Valley. Its annual conference, TiEcon 2022, will be held May 5-7. It is expected to attract some 50,000 attendees, including scientists, innovators, venture capitalists and CEOs from around the world. TiEcon ranks with the World Economic Forum, TED, Demo and Forbes Global CEO as one of the top ten conferences in the world.
Wish me luck on the Bourla interview at TiEcon 2022. Hope to see you there.
