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Now in its third year, the title of CNBC Changemaker is an honor that invites transformative women leaders into a lasting and increasingly tight-knit community. This past fall, several hundred women applied for the chance to join this community and to have their achievements recognized and celebrated by CNBC.
Here’s how we chose them.
During Fall 2025, CNBC conducted an open call for nominations for the list. Anyone could submit a nomination on behalf of any woman from any company or organization with at least $25 million in revenue in at least one of the past three years or an enterprise value of at least $100 million. CNBC received nominations for women across the business and cultural landscape, from companies and organizations ranging from small startups to the world’s most valuable multinationals.
Nominees/nominators were asked to complete a detailed application form. This questionnaire contained quantitative and qualitative information, which was used as the basis for CNBC’s evaluation.
Key to the nomination was the “2025 achievement,” a specific, measurable contribution made to the business world in 2025. This could be anything from driving significant revenue growth, to leading a turnaround effort, to sparking a viral cultural moment or movement. Whatever it was, it was important in the selection process that we identify a reason why each woman named to the list deserved the honor this year.
The evaluation began with a quantitative assessment. Nominees were evaluated on three broad categories: Influence, Representation and Results. Members of the Changemakers Advisory Board, a group of business visionaries dedicated to transformational change and the advancement of women in leadership roles that now also includes two past CNBC Changemakers, provided the weighting for each category. The advisory board gave the Results category the highest weight, followed by Influence, and then Representation. The board also provided weighting for the individual components within each of the three categories.
After the quantitative evaluation, approximately one-third of the nominees were selected to move forward to a second round based on their weighted total scores. To move on to round two, nominees either scored in the top 25% overall, or scored in the top tier of their category (such as “startup founder” or “public company C-suite”). This ensured a more balanced overall list.
For round two, the remaining nominees were divided into small groups for qualitative assessment. A team of CNBC editorial staff read the responses submitted with each nomination and assigned up to five points for each of the three criteria.
These were:
Contribution: Looking specifically at the nomination response to ”Contribution to the business world in 2025,” scorers assessed the contribution the applicant made to the business world, and to broader society, last year.
Transformational Change: Scorers were to assess whether the specific contribution, as well as the balance of the nominee’s work and the manner in which that work is done, represents a fundamental shift. More specifically, scorers were asked to look for ways in which nominees reject traditional male archetypes of business leadership and lead with their own authentic, unique strengths.
Inspiring Leader: Scorers were asked whether the applicant’s story inspires them, and whether it will inspire her employees, customers and investors.
Qualitative scores were added to the quantitative score from round one, with each weighted equally (50% qualitative, 50% quantitative), and nominees were re-ranked according to their total scores.
A smaller group of CNBC editorial senior staff participated in a final editorial review, which involved some additional research, discussion and debate to determine the 2026 honorees. Part of that discussion and debate involved comparing potential 2026 Changemakers to the 100 women named to the 2024 and 2025 lists. Those women have helped us define what it means to be a CNBC Changemaker, and the committee was determined to make sure the third edition of the list measured up to the first two.
