TIME has just recognized its 16 women leaders who are working toward a better tomorrow. Let’s go through the list and just why they are being recognized.
Teyana Taylor
Teyana Taylor is continually defying the industry limitations before her. She is unapologetically herself and fosters the community among Black women. She is a multi-hyphenate “creative,” as she likes to call herself. Known as an actor, director, musician, dancer, and choreographer. In her interview with TIME, she is “all of the above,” not just what we listed. It continues to say, “if making it as any one of those is hard, then being taken seriously for all of them is nearly impossible.” Taylor says, “It took time.” Much like her character. Perfidia in One Battle After Another, she is a determined woman who has refused to stay in her lane. She knows what she wants and takes it while advocating for herself.
Chloé Zhao
Chloé Zhao is a director who stepped away from Hollywood after directing the Marvel film Eternals in 2021. She has since returned for her fifth feature film, Hamnet, which is up for Best Picture at the Oscars. She is also in the running for Best Director, which is her second nomination after her groundbreaking win in 2021. This is when she became the first woman of color to receive the award for Nomadland. She is a trailblazer for aspiring girls who want to direct. She uses femininity as an asset in her art. In her article, she speaks upon this, “Our intuition and our ability to shape the world around us is extremely powerful… We can shape reality from our emotionality and somatic wisdom.” She is a woman who embraces herself and uses each piece of herself in her films.
Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay, who is most known as Captain Olivia Benson. She’s been on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit for nearly three decades. She has since added documentary filmmaker to the list. My Mom Jayne covered the career and complicated life of her mother, Jayne Mansfield. Hargitay also started the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004, inspired in part by her role on Law and Order. The foundation helps survivors find justice and healing through legislation reform, education, advocacy, and community building. It helped pass the Take It Down Act. A federal law created to combat the publication of nonconsensual intimate images online, including AI-generated deepfakes. She is also a survivor of sexual assault. She has helped so many people heal and keep going in life while also maintaining her role on an acclaimed show for so long.
Sydney McLaughlin Levrone
Sydney McLaughlin Levrone made her U.S. Olympic Team Debut in the 400 m hurdles in Rio de Janeiro at the age of only 17. She won gold in both Tokyo and Paris, and has set six world records for the event. It was in Tokyo that she clocked the second fastest time in history (47.78 sec.), just 0.18 seconds shy of a 40-year-old record. She doesn’t allow the sport to define her. She has plans to run in multiple races in the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Also, she will become a mother, as in January, she and her husband, Andre Levrone Jr., announced they’re expecting their first child.
Amy Sherald
Amy Sherald is most known for her 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama, but she most often paints everyday people. She tells TIME, “I’m drawn to expression of humanity,” she continues, “I want (viewers) to think about who these people are, what it’s like to interact with them, what stories they might be telling.” 38 of Sherald’s portraits are currently on display in “American Sublime,” it resides in the Baltimore Museum of Art. In the article, she says no matter where her art is displayed, she views portraiture as “ministry.” Her brushstrokes allow her to “proselytize love and empathy and beauty to the world.” She centers her work on Black women and uses the greyscale to eliminate typical viewing habits. She uses the humanity of the person to captivate the viewer.
Sister Norma Pimentel
Sister Norma Pimentel has served as director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) since 2004. She serves as a voice for immigrant families, reminding people are not just a statistic or number. But someone who should be cared for and respected. She helped transform the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, into a place for refuge that has served more than 100,000 migrants. They provide them with food, shelter, and essentials like clothing and hygiene products. With the political news surrounding immigrants, Pimentel shifted the focus to aiding community members who are elderly, hungry, or homeless. The TIME article states she was “late Pope Francis’ favorite nun.” In the face of the political climate, she has persevered and helped as many people as she possibly can with the limitations set before her.
Reshma Saujani
Reshma Saujani is a lawyer and activist. She is also the founder of Moms First, a nonprofit that advocates for mothers, especially through paid leave and affordable childcare. She also founded Girls Who Code. A nonprofit that has worked with more than 760,000 students and raised tens of millions of dollars since being established in 2012 to close the gender gap in coding and technology employment. She is also known for her moment with President Donald Trump, as she questioned him about his plans to address childcare affordability. When he fumbled, his answer went viral and began to raise awareness about how expensive childcare has become in the U.S. Any woman who can make a high-powered man stumble over his words is a strong and confident woman. She is a role model for young girls who want to go into STEM and politics.
Lucy Liu
Lucy Liu became an icon on the screen when she appeared in Kill Billas O-Ren Ishii. Then she kicked butt in Charlie’s Angels as Alex. There was also the time she appeared on Sex and the City as herself. She takes down Samantha after she tries to use her name to get a Birkin bag. She has spent more than 30 years in the industry pushing the boundaries of stereotypes in Hollywood. But for almost a decade, Liu has worked on Rosemead, a film based on real events.
Liu’s Irene is a widowed Taiwanese American mother in Southern California facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, while trying to manage her son Joe’s (Lawrence Shou) worsening schizophrenia. She told TIME, “More stories are out there, and they should have the ability to be received and to be seen,” adding that making Rosemead was the “beginning of understanding how much more we can do.” She is a role model for those trying to get into the industry or just through life, especially children of immigrant parents, showing them the possibilities they are capable of.
Mahnoor Omer
Mahnoor Omer was a teenager in Pakistan when her purpose in life was shaped by two moments. When she was 14, she found herself dissatisfied with the education of girls on sexual violence. She then founded the Noor Foundation and held workshops with village girls about topics from climate change to menstruation. The second was a conversation with a domestic worker in her house about the price of pads and tampons, which made her realize that not everyone could afford the essentials.
Now 25, she is putting her passion for activism to work. She says to TIME, “Growing up and seeing how society has no justice for women has put the innate sense of obligation in me.” The article says she is currently earning her master’s degree in gender, peace, and security at the London School of Economics. She is challenging the “period tax,” so that women can afford pads and tampons instead of using cloth that may cause rashes or infections. She is inspiring young girls around the world to take charge of their education and the right to access sanitary products.
Brandi Carlile
Brandi Carlile is a 44-year-old singer-songwriter whose music tackles love and fear, especially on her eighth studio album, Returning to Myself, which was released in October. It achieved the second-highest Billboard chart position of her career. Time says she is “grappling with her role as an artist in a divided world.” She wrote her song “Church & State” the night Trump was elected in 2024. One of her most notable lyrics exposes sexism: “You get discouraged, don’t you, girl? It’s your brother’s world for a while longer.” This is in “The Joke”, which won two Grammys. She is a member of the LGBTQ community and told TIME that the “people have a unique perspective and ability to do this. I don’t think an artist can do it alone.” She inspires those to use their talents to share their voice and stand up for what they believe in.
Mel Robbins
Mel Robbins is the host of The Mel Robbins Podcast and helps shift the mindset that helps people feel more in control of their lives- she is known to turn down celebrities who want to come on as guests. She says to TIME in response, “What do you have to make a nurse or a teacher or a firefighter’s life better? If you can’t do that, you’re not on my show,” that it’s “not about you. It’s about them.”
She started her podcast from her closet floor and now gets around 9-11 million viewers and listeners a week. She is an everyday woman and positions herself as such; she acts as a friend with advice. Crediting women as the major demographic for her, and that has contributed the most. She wants to be a “lighthouse in a storm,” wanting to tell uplifting stories. She inspires those to write their own destiny and take charge of their lives.
Reshma Kewalramani
Reshma Kewalramani started as a kidney doctor and is now the CEO and president of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She tells TIME, “What I wanted to do was make medicines for patients.” When she took the position in 2020 at Vertex, she became the first female CEO of a large, public biotechnology company. The company under her leadership launched the first CRISPR-based gene-editing therapy, a treatment for sickle-cell disease, as well as a new class of FDA-approved nonopioid pain medication in January 2025. They continue to deliver breakthrough drugs for cystic fibrosis. Kewalramani says in the article, “I feel like the best thing to do…is to make sure that you do the most good for the most number of patients.” She inspires women who are going into healthcare to not just focus on the job, but also on the reason for the job—to do good.
Isata Dumbuya
Isata Dumbuya was a midwife for 25 years for the U.K.’s National Health Service. She returned to Kono, Sierra Leone. Where she was born, after learning that Partners In Health planned to open a maternity center there. She signed on to become the head of nursing and midwifery. Saying to TIME about the maternal mortality rates in Kono, “There were just so many women dying, when another one dies, it’s almost like ‘Well, what can I do?’” Dumbuya has been working to improve the statistics and conditions by securing supplies and training staff to identify warning signs and treat them as needed. She inspires those to help improve maternal healthcare and the view on what is acceptable.
Safeena Husain
Safeena Husain has had a very good year, as the founder of Educate Girls, a Mumbai-based nonprofit that has helped more than two million girls in some of the most remote villages in India to get back into the classroom. Educate Girls was chosen in 2019 as the first Asian organization to be supported by the Audacious Project, a social-impact funding group. They reached their goal of educating 1.5 million out-of-school girls in 2025 and kept going up. They also became the first Indian nonprofit to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, known as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.
This drive comes from her own experience. She spent most of her childhood in poverty, surrounded by violence and abuse, which disrupted her own education. She tells TIME, “I just want to remind people that there’s still 133 million girls globally that are out of school.” Continuing, “I’ve never met a girl who said, ‘I don’t want to go to school. I want to graze the goats, I want to be a child bride. I want to do the household work.’” She affirms that no girl says that. Every girl wants to go to school. She inspires those to pursue the education they deserve and fight for the right to do so.
Sheryl Lee Ralph
Sheryl Lee Ralph has spent 50 years as a performer. She’s been granted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She reflected to TIME the advice given to her by Robert De Niro on the set of Mistress. “You’re a damn good actress, and that’s too bad, because Hollywood is not looking for you, so you better climb that mountain and wave that red flag and let them know you are there.” She took that advice and climbed. She received her first Tony nomination in 1982. For her breakout role as Deena Jones in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls and has since amassed a list of credits under her belt.
She is known most notably for her role as Barbara Howard on Abbott Elementary and won her first Emmy for the role. She has also been raising awareness for HIV/AIDS for decades. In collaboration with the DIVA Foundation, the nonprofit she founded in 1990, she executive-produced a documentary,Living Proof. It highlights the experiences of Black Women living with HIV in the South. She inspires those to chase what they want. Stand up and be a voice for those without one. And to contribute to those who need it and tell their story.
Kecia Steelman
Kecia Steelman was named president and CEO ofUlta Beauty in January 2025. Ulta Beauty, one of the largest beauty retailers in the U.S., has a staff of more than 58,000. 91% of whom are in-store sales associates and women. She tells TIME, “I take a lot of responsibility in…being an advocate for other women that are out there trying to break through,” she continues, “that’s one of the best days at work for me—when I identify someone as having that ‘it’ factor.”
Her journey started as a 20-year-old single mom in Iowa, when she took an $8-an-hour job at the local Target. She was offered a leadership opportunity. It was from there she worked her way up. Landing jobs at Home Depot and Family Dollar before joining Ulta in 2014. She tells TIME, “As female CEOs, we need to create those environments so we can get more women at the top.” She has taken this drive and opened stores in the U.K., Mexico, and the Middle East. Allowing Steelman to collaborate with women-owned brands around the world. She inspires women to get themselves and others to the top and be a partner to their fellow women.
In the End
Overall, TIME’s 16 Women of the Year are exceptional in their own different ways. They are helping the women’s movement and inspiring the exceptional women of tomorrow. We can all take a page out of their book. Take charge of our lives and help those around us.
