How We Chose the 2025 TIME100

What happens next? As journalists, that is the question we get asked more than any other, particularly these days. As we were closing this issue, President Donald Trump introduced a tariff plan that upended the global economic system. For many readers, the move accelerated the sense that almost everything was shifting, with very real consequences for themselves and their neighbors. Some celebrate these changes. Others condemn them. No one is certain what comes next.

TIME’s founders knew that focusing on the individuals who are transforming the world is the best way to help readers understand it. That belief animates much of what we do at TIME. Take Person of the Year, which in two years will reach its centennial. Or the TIME100, our annual list of the most influential people in the world, launched more than two decades ago. Both projects are as relevant today as at any point in their histories. The 2025 TIME100, in partnership with our Official Timekeeper Rolex, will be our biggest yet, including a daylong summit with interviews with world leaders, and our annual gala, which will be broadcast on May 4 on ABC in the U.S. and stream around the world on Hulu. This year, as we continue to develop TIME’s signature leadership platform, we’ll introduce two new TIME100 franchises: one focused on philanthropy and the other on digital creators.

What does the 2025 TIME100 tell us about the forces shaping our lives? It includes six members of the Trump Administration, the largest contingent from a political Administration since Barack Obama arrived in Washington in 2009, a recognition of where global disruption originates today. This year’s group also includes 16 corporate CEOs, a record, and a sign of the emergence of a class of business leaders who are filling a leadership void. It includes nine leaders who are fighting for justice, equality, and democracy, at a moment when the rights of so many are at stake. Members of the list come from 32 countries. The youngest is 22-year-old Léon Marchand, a French swimmer who dominated the Paris Olympics. The oldest is Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate who, at 84, was sworn in last summer to lead Bangladesh’s interim government.

This year, TIME’s journalists reported profiles of the five cover subjects. Belinda Luscombe traveled to Los Angeles to hang out with Snoop Dogg, whose omnipresence is a study in contradictions. “At a time when people increasingly huddle within cultural fortresses of their algorithms,” she writes, “Snoop is a battering ram.” In London, Billy Perrigo spoke with Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind and winner of a 2024 Nobel Prize, to determine what this singular figure in AI can tell us about the technological transformation he is leading. Sean Gregory stopped by Serena Williams’ farm in South Florida to find out how the tennis legend is now reshaping both the worlds of sport and investment. Andrew Chow accompanied Ed Sheeran to a surprise St. Patrick’s Day show at a Boston pub, seeking to learn how the singer emerged from a dark period to find new sources of creativity. Lucy Feldman spoke with The Substance star Demi Moore, who was reflective about her career and is now energized by the prospect of telling stories that challenge how we perceive women in their 60s: “In fact, this is an incredibly powerful, exciting, and alive time.”

The TIME100 now lives across all the many channels where people follow TIME. At its center is a process overseen by Dan Macsai and Cate Matthews, who leads TIME’s journalists through a year of debate and discovery, speaking with sources and partners around the globe to whittle down a list of 100 individuals. “The stories this project tells change with the headlines, so every May, our research starts anew. The one constant we see each year is that a single person’s hard work, idea, or decision can change the world,” Matthews said.

So what’s going to happen? Whatever change comes, we think the 2025 TIME100 will lead it.

Order your copy of the 2025 TIME100 issue here