On Wednesday, he was named Person of the Year by The Financial Times. : George Soros’s name is synonymous with a slew of adjectives: billionaire, investor, philanthropist and activist. (For many right-wing conspiracy theorists, that laundry list also includes political puppetmaster.) On Wednesday, however, Soros gained one more descriptor: The Financial Times’s 2018 Person of the Year. Soros’s philanthropy has spanned the globe, beginning with scholarships for black South Africans suffering under apartheid in 1979 and later expanding to the United States, Africa, Asia and Latin America, focusing on promoting accountable and transparent democracy.