Arianna Huffington

Currently a central player in shaping the interplay between politics, the economy, the media and public policy, Arianna Huffington stands at the forefront of the new media. The driving force behind The Huffington Post, she leads one of the world's most successful and influential news and opinion sites. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. Only a year after launching The Huffington Post, Huffington was named to TIME magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people, and she was recently named as one of the most influential women in media by Forbes magazine, as one of the top ten thought-leaders of the decade by Newsweek and one of the top 50 people who shaped the decade by the Financial Times. Huffington is author of 13 books including the best-seller On Becoming Fearlessin Love, Work, and Life, the very timely Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America and the upcoming Third World America (August, 2010). She has given her honest, outspoken views on shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show, Squawk Box, Real Time with Bill Maher, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Today and The Tonight Show.