Of the top 100 economies in the world, roughly half of them are corporations, not countries. At the top of these corporate mega-states are managers, but above them are the owners and shareholders. Together these super-rich owners of capital form a kind of collective emperor.
The richest 85 people in the world own more wealth than the poorest 4 billion, and that is a disparity of not only wealth, but power and control and influence. The domain of the imperial masters reaches as far as their capital, and they seize territory through investment, increasing market share, and smashing the sovereignty of states. They use Multinational corporations as institutions of imperial domination.