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Facebook CEO awarded Cannes Media Person of the Year

The 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival announced yesterday, Monday, 8 March 2010 that Mark Zuckerberg (25), founder and CEO of Facebook, has been recognised as its Media Person of the Year Award.
Facebook CEO awarded Cannes Media Person of the Year

Cannes Lions delegates will have the opportunity to listen to Zuckerberg present the Facebook seminar on Wednesday 23 June and he will be honoured that evening during the Press, Cyber and Design Lions Awards Ceremony in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes.

“This award goes to those who have changed the face of media and communications, usually after a lifetime of achievement. For Mark Zuckerberg to have created one of the internet's most dominant businesses so quickly, and to have had such a global impact on the way we all communicate with each other, is quite simply astonishing. We are delighted to honour him with this award,” said Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions CEO.

“We are still in the early stages of our mission to build things that make the world more open and connected, so I feel honoured and humbled to receive this award in recognition of what we've accomplished so far," said Zuckerberg. "We will continue to innovate and push technical boundaries to create better ways for people, developers and advertisers to connect and share on our platform.”

Previous recipients of the Media Person of the Year Award include, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation; Sir Anthony O'Reilly, CEO of Independent News & Media; Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings; Sumner Redstone, chairman and CEO of Viacom and Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner.

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