Bill Gates has emerged as the most admired person in the world in a survey conducted by UK opinion pollster YouGov. With a 10.10% share he narrowly beat Barack Obama who came in second overall.

The poll of almost 14,000 people was undertaken for the Times newspaper using a mix of Internet and mobile phone surveys conducted in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the US, Australia, Pakistan, Indonesia, India, China, Egypt, Nigeria and Brazil.

Participants were asked to name the person they most admired and while many named their mom or dad nominating their head of state was also popular with The Queen topping the UK poll with 18.74% and Vladamir Putin coming top in Russia with 24.62% of his country's nominations. Barack Obama, however, didn't take top slot in the USA; his 10.35% shared was less than half that of Pope Francis at 21.07%.

Bills Gates figured in the top ten for every country surveyed so although he was only nominated by 2.96% of US citizens his name was suggested by over 10% of Pakistanis, placing him in second position to Imran Khan and in China he gained almost 19% of nominations over double that of Xi Jinping in second place.

While it is likely that Gates is the most admired person either on account of being the richest person on the planet or for his philanthropy, the result is still reported as "Bill Gates, the co-founder of  Microsoft ..." and it is tempting to wish that he could work some new magic for Microsoft.

With Microsoft looking for a new CEO to guide it out of its current morass what could be better that for the most admired man in the world to return for the helm, at least temporarily. Restoring Microsoft's fortunes would surely increase his own and provide more with which to extend his philanthropy. 

After all, who else could ignore the opinions and disapproval of the outgoing CEO, Steve Ballmer?

Taking over at Microsoft could make him even more admired next year.