Corina Creţu (born June 24, 1967) is a Romanian politician and journalist, former Spokersperson for the President of Romania during Ion Iliescu's time in office. Elected to the Senate for the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in 2004, she became a Member of the European Parliament (sitting among the Party of European Socialists group) on January 1, 2007, following the accession of Romania to the European Union. She is a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Born in Bucharest, Creţu graduated from the Academy of Economic Studies' Faculty of Cybernetics (1989), and worked as an economist for factories in Blaj and Bucharest until 1990. After the latter date, she was employed as a commentator on current events by the newspapers Azi, Curierul Naţional, and Cronica Română. She worked for President Iliescu's Spokesperson Office during two separate mandates (in 1992-1996 and in 2000-2004); between 2000 and 2004, Creţu was Presidential Advisor (with the rank of Minister), Presidential Spokesperson and Head of the Public Communication Department. In 2002, she was also selected by President Iliescu for the Board of the Romanian Television Company, and confirmed by a vote in Parliament.

Colin Luther Powell ( /ˈkoʊlɨn/; born April 5, 1937) is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military career, Powell also served as National Security Advisor (1987–1989), as Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), holding the latter position during the Gulf War. He was the first, and so far the only, African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937 in Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, to Jamaican immigrant parents Maud Arial (née McKoy) and Luther Theophilus Powell. He also has Scottish ancestry. Powell was raised in the South Bronx and attended Morris High School, a former public school in the Bronx, from which he graduated in 1954. While at school, he worked at a local baby furniture store where he picked up Yiddish from the shopkeepers and some of the customers. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the City College of New York in 1958 and was a self-admitted C average student. He was later able to earn a Master of Business Administration degree from the George Washington University in 1971, after his second tour in Vietnam.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.

Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party used the phrases "New Labour" and "New Socialism" to define its policy, and moved away from its support of state socialism since the 1960s and created a new version of the ethical socialism that was last pursued by Clement Attlee. Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism. Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington) is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

George Becali (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈd͡ʒe̯ord͡ʒe beˈkali], commonly known in Romania as Gigi Becali; born 25 June 1958) is a controversial Romanian politician and businessman, mostly known for his involvement in the Steaua Bucureşti football club.

He has been a Member of the European Parliament since June 2009.

He was born in an Aromanian family in Zagna, Vădeni, Brăila County, as his family had been deported to the Bărăgan by the Communist authorities because of their associations with the pre-WWII fascist Iron Guard.

During childhood and adolescence, Becali was a supporter of Dinamo Bucharest. His cousins Victor Becali and Ioan Becali are football agents involved in Romanian football mainly for Dinamo Bucharest. In 1994, he married Luminiţa, 11 years his junior; the couple have three daughters: Teodora (b. 1995), Alexandra (b. 1996) and Cristina (b. 2001).

After the 2005 floods, he used $4 million of his personal money to fund the reconstruction of about 200 houses in the Vulturu village (Vulturu commune, Vrancea county) that was destroyed by the overflow of the Siret river. However, he is still the legal owner of the 200 houses. Subsequently the villagers wanted to rename it Vulturu Becali (Becali Vulture) in his honor.