How We Choose the Class of 2026
The Most Influential People in Business
Every year we name the 25 most influential people in each of 26 industries. The Class of 2026 is 650 people.
Nobody on that list applied for a place, and nobody paid for one. There is no entry fee, no submission fee, no upgrade, and no commercial relationship with us that puts a name on a list or keeps one off. This page explains how we actually decide, including the parts that are judgement rather than measurement.
It is a ranking, and it is ours
Influence is not a quantity. Nobody can measure it the way you measure revenue or headcount, and any publication claiming to have done so is overselling. So we will say plainly what this is: these are the people we judge to be the most influential in each field, assessed against the criteria below. It is an informed opinion, published annually, and held to a stated method.
That is what every serious index is. The value is not that the judgement is infallible — it is that the same criteria are applied to everyone, the criteria are published, the evidence is public, and the person making the call is named. If you disagree with a placing, you are disagreeing with a judgement we have explained rather than a number we have hidden. We think that is the more useful thing to argue with, and we would rather you argued with it than took it on trust.
What we are measuring
Influence — not seniority, not achievement, and not fame on its own.
The question we are asking is narrow: when this person speaks in their field, does the field hear it and respond? Influence of that kind is visible in public. It shows up in what someone publishes, where they are asked to speak, who cites them, and whether an audience of their own peers follows what they say. So that is what we assess.
We assess everything within a 12-month review period ending at publication. This is a list of who is influential now, not a lifetime achievement award. A long and distinguished career is a baseline credibility check; it does not by itself earn a place.
The six criteria
Assessment runs across six criteria. They are weighted, and they are listed here in order of weight, heaviest first.
1. LinkedIn presence and engagement
The heaviest-weighted criterion, and deliberately so. LinkedIn is where professional influence is currently exercised and observed, and it is the mechanism by which an argument made in one industry actually reaches that industry.
We look at the size of the audience a person has built, how consistently they publish to it, and — most importantly — whether what they publish travels beyond their own followers. Comments and shares from outside the immediate network, newsletters with real subscriber bases, posts that surface in search, and content that reliably starts a discussion in the field all count. Consistency matters more than volume.
Other platforms — YouTube, newsletters, podcasts — supplement this. They do not replace it.
2. Thought leadership output
What the person created and released in the review period, assessed on volume, quality and the reach of the platform it appeared on:
Books with mainstream or well-regarded independent publishers
Articles and research in major business or industry publications
Podcasts they host, judged on consistency and audience
Courses and structured educational programmes launched
Keynotes at significant industry conferences
New frameworks or methodologies published and documented
3. Professional reputation and track record
The substance behind the profile: the calibre of organisations they work with, the depth and longevity of their practice, publicly verifiable client outcomes rather than self-reported ones, institutional affiliations such as faculty roles, professional credentials and board seats, and endorsements from other credible figures who can themselves be checked.
4. Media and online visibility
Press features and mentions in national and major industry titles, podcast guest appearances on shows with real audiences, broadcast and major digital appearances, and how discoverable someone is for their area of expertise when you search the subject rather than their name.
5. Community impact and philanthropy
Assessed both in the review period and as an ongoing pattern: documented charitable or pro bono work, mentorship and initiatives supporting underrepresented people in the field, nonprofit boards and advisory roles, foundation or scholarship work, and community-building that goes beyond the commercial practice.
6. Industry recognition
Recognition received in the review period: awards from professional bodies, inclusion on peer-produced lists by credible publications, academic and institutional honours, and press titles specifically recognising a contribution to the field.
What does not count
We do not count our own publication. Articles published on The Industry Leaders — including by our paying Leadership Columnists — are not evidence of influence in this assessment. A measure that cites its own pages is grading its own homework.
The same person's column in another outlet counts. Their book counts. Their newsletter counts. If something they published with us is picked up and argued with elsewhere, that reaction counts, because independent reaction is the one thing nobody can buy from us.
We also do not count pay-to-enter awards, purchased rankings or badges, coverage placed through paid syndication, or audience that cannot be independently observed.
Verification
Every candidate is individually verified before inclusion. Verification requires a confirmed profile with a visible audience, and at least one independently verifiable achievement inside the review period — a book, an award, a media feature, an institutional role. Anyone we cannot verify to that standard is removed, however well regarded they are.
Claims that rest only on self-reported data do not survive verification.
Disqualifying factors
No verifiable activity inside the review period
No independently observable professional audience on any public platform
Credible evidence of professional misconduct or ethical violations
Output that conflicts with our editorial values
How a name comes to us
Three routes, and only three.
Our own research. Most of it. We read the field.
Public nomination, at the form below. Anyone can nominate anyone, including themselves. It is free. A nomination guarantees consideration and nothing more — most do not result in selection — and nominating yourself is neither an advantage nor a mark against you.
Prior honourees, automatically reconsidered each year.
There is no fourth route. No paid entry, no expedited review, no agency allocation.
Who decides
The final 25 in each industry is settled by the editor, Rob Barratt, working from the research against the criteria above. Close calls get a second reader before publication.
Twenty-five, every time
Each list carries exactly 25 names. We do not shorten a list when an industry is thin or extend one when it is deep. The honest cost of that, stated here rather than buried: the 25th name in a narrow field is not doing the same work as the 25th in a crowded one. That is true of any ranking with fixed places, and we would rather say so.
Honourees can be named again
Selection is reassessed from scratch each year and prior honourees can appear again. A no-repeat rule would force the most influential people out of a list precisely because we had already noticed them, and the list would get worse every year. What repetition gives us instead is year-on-year movement — who entered, who left, who climbed — which is the more interesting record.
The commercial firewall
We sell editorial services: guest articles, interviews, a Leadership Columnist subscription, and managed visibility programmes. They are a separate business from this programme, and they are kept separate on purpose.
Buying from us does not help you get selected.
Buying from us does not prevent you from being selected.
Not buying from us has no effect in either direction.
Nobody in a paid programme is told, or allowed to infer, otherwise.
Paid and partner content is labelled, categorised as Partner Content, and carries rel="sponsored" on outbound links. Link attributes are not a product we sell.
Disclosure. Where an honouree is or has been a paying customer, we disclose it on the list page, and we track what share of each cohort that represents.
Our full Editorial & Advertising Policy and Contributor Guidelines set out how that separation is enforced in practice.
What this method misses
Assessing influence from public record favours people who work in public. Someone whose influence runs through closed rooms — a board, a regulator, a private network — is systematically undercounted here. We know it, we have not solved it, and we would rather say so than claim a completeness we do not have.
Our coverage also leans towards English-language output and towards the US, Canada, UK and Australia, which is where we publish and where we read.
Telling us we got it wrong
If you think a list is wrong — a name that should not be on it, or one that should — write to contact@theindustryleaders.org with your reasoning. We read all of them. We do not add or remove names on request and nobody can buy a correction, but a good argument changes next year's list, and occasionally this year's.
Nominate someone for 2027
Nominations for the Class of 2027 are open and free. Anyone can nominate anyone, including themselves.
The Industry Leaders Top 25 — 2026 Edition. Review period: the 12 months prior to publication. Lists are finalised in April each year. Inclusion or exclusion does not constitute an endorsement. Positions within a list do not reflect a definitive ranking of merit. Selections are made at the sole editorial discretion of The Industry Leaders, published by Quantitiv Ltd.
