Priyanka Chopra, Salman Khan feature in Variety's 500 most influential people in entertainment

Actors Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan and director Karan Johar feature among the 12 Indians in Variety500, an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global $2 trillion entertainment industry, compiled the American magazine Variety. [caption id=“attachment_4235739” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan. Twitter/@ishab26 and Twitter/@Prabhas_Univers[/caption] Priyanka Chopra’s profile tracks her career from her 2000 Miss World pageant victory to her 2003 film debut in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy to her rise to stardom and eventual move to American television with ABC’s hit TV series Quantico. A global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for child rights, her philanthropic efforts with the Priyanka Chopra Foundation for Health and Education have helped underprivileged kids. Salman Khan’s profile talks about his Bollywood reign in an era that also includes Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan and delves into the mass hysteria he generates among his fan following. It also mentions his Being Human initiative, which seeks to educate the disadvantaged. The Variety500 is decided based on the accomplishments of the most influential people in entertainment over the year. The list also includes other prominent businessmen like Punit Goenka, CEO and MD of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd; Ekta Kapoor, MD and Creative Director of Balaji Telefilms; Aditya Chopra, Chairman of Yashraj Films; Kishore Lulla, Executive Chairman of Eros International; Uday Shankar, chairman of Star India; Siddharth Kapur, President of The Film & Television Producers Guild of India Ltd.; Subhash Chandra, founder and chairman of Essel group and the Ambanis — Mukesh and Anil. Americans lead the field with a whopping 362 names followed by the British (28), Chinese (20), French (16) and German (15) with India placed sixth.