CNBC is currently accepting nominations for the 2026 Changemakers list, featuring business and philanthropy that transform women who achieved meaningful results in 2025. It is important to highlight women who emphasize women as the 100 women named to the 2024 and 2025 lists are thriving and innovating throughout the industry. Like the first two women on the Changemaker list, this upcoming list looks for women who take a novel approach to old business issues and identify new business opportunities.
Our community of changemakers continues to reach new milestones with many notable moves this year. Instacart CEO Fidji Simo was hired by Openai as head of the application. The basketball league of Naphesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, another similar, has taken new investors, including Serena Williams’ company Serena Ventures at a $340 million valuation. Paris Hilton debuted as the star of Karl Lagerfeld’s new campaign after launching her new skincare line, Paravi, in August.
Angela Fan continues to innovate in biotechnology as Metaphore’s flagship pioneer and CEO partner, leaving her role at Pfizer and helping her bring 600 medications and vaccines to patients. Sima Sistani, former CEO of WeightWatchers, is now an adjunct professor at Duke. And former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is a prominent companion on the Foreign Relations Council, reporting that she is considering the president’s run.
I’m excited to interview many of our changemakers and other influential women for the new podcast I’m hosting, “CNBC Changemaker & Power Player” that it’s on sale on Tuesday on all major platforms. I learned a lot from these women about how I navigated through seemingly impossible situations and found the best strategies for them in business and life.
Women have made some advances in leadership. It currently operates a record 11% of Fortune 500 companies. This has been increasing over the past decade. However, that record numbers still represent a massive gender gap, and in fact they are growing in a key role across corporate America. In fact, according to an Altrata report released in August, the S&P 500 board and the female representatives of the leadership team are in decline. Additionally, the appointment of new female supervisors for Russell 3000 has fallen to its lowest point since 2017. It could have a major ripple effect on the entire perspective included in corporate policies and C-suite decisions.
Meanwhile, when Fortune was called “Bro-Ipo” summer, 88% of the 61 companies that applied for the IPO in early August had one or zero women on their boards, while 93% had one or zero women on their C-Suite. Given that women hold about 30% of the Russell 3000 companies’ board of directors and 29% of the role of C-Sweet, the newly matured public companies show a significant decline in leadership diversity. This happens when businesses roll back their gender diversity efforts. After receiving an unfavourable court of appeals ruling in December, NASDAQ has suspended its obligation for businesses to disclose board gender and diversity statistics. In February, Goldman Sachs withdrew its pledge that it would refuse to make the company public if its board is entirely male. In any case, female representation in key powerful roles is even rarer in new species of public companies.
That’s why we believe it’s more important than ever to emphasize the work of successful women. It is about innovating and driving change in the organization and beyond. Like the past two years, this list is not ranked and features women from across the industry, including philanthropy. We are excited to help CNBC Changemaker Guidance, with guidance from an advisory board of experienced leaders across the industry, determine the weight of the criteria used to select a list and identify comprehensive group groups.
Consider nominating yourself or women running a large organization. We are looking for a leader in a company or organization that has earned at least $25 million annually for at least one over the past three years, or a leader in a private company with a corporate value of $250 million in public companies.
The list will be announced in February 2026 and will hold its third annual change maker summit in April. If you have any questions, please contact changemakers@cnbc.com.
Find out more about the nominations for the 2026 CNBC Changemaker List.
Follow and listen to the “CNBC Changemaker & Power Player” podcast on Apple and Spotify.
