Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be named the Media Person of the Year at the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Cannes Lions Media Person of the Year is awarded 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 internets 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.

Previous recipients of the Media Person of the Year Award include, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation; Sir Anthony OReilly, 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.

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 weve 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.