Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter is the most influential business thinker in the world, according to Thinkers50, a just-released ranking put out every other year by a consulting firm run by Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, British business consultants, authors and coaches. The list, which Crainer and Dearlove inaugurated in 2001, has been called the Oscars of management thinking. The 50 names were revealed this evening at a black tie event in London sponsored by companies like Japan’s Fujitsu.