CNBC Changemakers
Jesse Grant | CNBC
CNBC is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Changemakers listing that options girls reworking enterprise and philanthropy, who’ve achieved a significant achievement in 2025. With a group of 100 girls who we have named to our 2024 and 2025 lists thriving and innovating throughout industries, it is extra necessary than ever to focus on the ladies defying odds. Similar to the ladies on our first two Changemakers lists, for this upcoming listing we’re searching for girls who’re taking novel approaches to outdated enterprise issues and figuring out new enterprise alternatives.
Our Changemakers group has continued to succeed in new milestones, with plenty of notable strikes this 12 months. Instacart CEO Fidji Simo was employed by OpenAI as head of purposes. Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart’s basketball league, Unequalled, drew new buyers, together with Serena Williams’ agency Serena Ventures, at a valuation of $340 million. Paris Hilton, after launching a brand new skincare line, Paravie, in August debuted because the star of Karl Lagerfeld’s new marketing campaign.
Angela Hwang is continuous her position innovating in biotech as CEO-Companion of Flagship Pioneering and CEO of Metaphore, after leaving her position at Pfizer, the place she helped carry 600 medicines and vaccines to sufferers. Sima Sistani, previously the CEO of WeightWatchers, is now an adjunct professor at Duke. And former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is now a distinguished fellow on the Council on International Relations, amid studies that she’s contemplating a presidential run.
I am thrilled to get to interview so a lot of our Changemakers together with different influential girls for the brand new CNBC podcast I’m internet hosting, “Changemakers & Energy Gamers,” which is launching Tuesday on all main platforms. I’ve realized a lot from these girls about how they’ve navigated seemingly unimaginable conditions and located the methods that work finest for them — in enterprise, and in life.
Ladies have made some progress in management — they now run a document 11% of Fortune 500 firms, a quantity that is been on the rise over the previous decade. However that document quantity nonetheless represents a large gender hole, and it is truly rising in key roles throughout company America. In actual fact, for the primary time in years, feminine illustration on S&P 500 boards and management groups has declined, in accordance with a report from Altrata launched in August. And new feminine director appointments for Russell 3000 firms have dropped to their lowest level since 2017, in accordance with Equilar. That would have huge ripple results throughout company insurance policies and the views included in C-suite resolution making.
In the meantime, in what Fortune dubbed the “bro-IPO” summer time, 88% of the 61 firms that filed for IPOs in early August had one or zero girls on their board of administrators, whereas 93% had one or zero girls of their C-suite. Given that girls maintain about 30% of board seats at Russell 3000 firms and 29% of C-suite roles, the newly-minted public firms present a notable decline in management range. This comes as corporations roll again gender range efforts. After an unfavorable appeals court docket resolution in December, Nasdaq stopped mandating firms disclose their board gender and variety stats. In February, Goldman Sachs dropped its pledge to refuse to take firms public if their boards had been completely male. In any case, feminine illustration in key highly effective roles is much more uncommon within the new breed of public firms.
That is why we imagine it is extra necessary than ever to focus on the work of girls who’re succeeding — innovating and driving change at their organizations and past. Simply as prior to now two years, this listing will probably be unranked, and can characteristic girls throughout industries, together with philanthropy. We’re thrilled to have the steering of our CNBC Changemakers Advisory Board of skilled leaders throughout industries to assist us decide the load of standards used to pick the listing and determine an inclusive group of girls.
We hope you may take into account nominating your self or girls who’re working massive organizations. We’re searching for leaders at firms and organizations with not less than $25 million in annual income in not less than one of many previous three years, or an enterprise worth of $100 million for personal firms and $250 million for public firms.
We are going to announce the listing in February 2026 and we’ll host our third annual Changemakers Summit in April. Please attain out to changemakers@cnbc.com with any questions.
Study extra about nominations for the 2026 CNBC Changemakers listing.
Comply with and take heed to the CNBC “Changemakers & Energy Gamers” podcast on Apple and Spotify.