The World's 50 Greatest Leaders

the world's 50 greatest leaders

In business, government, philanthropy and the arts, and all over the globe, these men and women are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same. Read more about our third annual list <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/worlds-greatest-leaders-2016-intro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

As Amazon spreads its hydra-headed offerings in new directions, its founder is also evolving. In the new issue of Fortune, Jeff Bezos talks about becoming what one expert calls a "leader of leaders,” and about taking on the mantle of civic leadership at the Washington Post. 
 
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Read more in Adam Lashinsky's profile, "<a href="http://fortune.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-prime/">Bezos Prime</a>."

Jeff Bezos

Angela Merkel has dominated Europe’s politics for a decade now. She is the only Continental leader whose term in office predates the 2008 financial crisis, a winner of three general elections who has also seen off countless intra-party rivals. But last year, after a decade of hard-nosed and decidedly cautious pragmatism, she became a conviction politician: She put charity and compassion ahead of Realpolitik by welcoming more than 1 million hard-pressed migrants and refugees to Germany. 
 
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It was an action that sealed her legacy as a great leader, but it may be the beginning of the end of her power. Merkel is facing a virulent anti-foreigner backlash at home and a “Schengen crisis” in the neighborhood as other European Union members hastily re-erect the national borders that were lowered by earlier, landmark union agreements. The EU in March offered billions of euros to Turkey to stop the flow of migrants. Nor is Merkel’s other great achievement—saving the eurozone from its debt crisis—truly secure. Her example is inspiring, but her star is waning: How far and how fast will it fall?

Angela Merkel

Myanmar is about to complete a once-unthinkable transition to democracy after more than 50 years of military dictatorship. Aung San Suu Kyi, 70, won’t be the country’s new leader—at least not officially. But hers was the steady trickle of resistance that wore down the stone of Myanmar’s despotism over almost 30 years of opposition. 
 
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Suu Kyi, the daughter of one of the founding heroes of the country’s post–World War II independence movement, returned to Myanmar from exile in 1988 to oppose the junta that had taken power in the early 1960s. She co-founded the National League for Democracy and steadfastly renounced violence, even as the military subjected her to house arrest for nearly 20 years. Her personal sacrifice gradually rallied global opinion around her cause, the more so after she won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Worn down by isolation and sanctions, the regime eventually agreed to allow free elections, which the NPD won in a landslide last November. 
 
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While rules imposed by the junta kept her from personally running for office, it was Suu Kyi’s nearly mythical reputation that rallied voters to her party. And she has made it clear that she will wield decisive behind-the-scenes authority (backing titular President Htin Kyaw, a friend and former aide) in the next, risky phase of the nation’s history. 
 
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Myanmar’s challenges include a struggling economy and violent conflict among its ethnic groups. But Suu Kyi has already demonstrated that her authenticity as a leader—her willingness to live the right message at any cost—can be a tremendous force for good.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Pope Francis has the distinction of being one of three leaders—alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook—who have made Fortune’s list every year of its existence. This past year has been the year of Pope Francis the diplomat. The first Latin American pope played a key role in brokering a deal between the U.S. and Cuba, writing letters to both presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro encouraging the two nations to find common ground. For the first time ever, Francis traveled to the U.S., to deliver his message of social justice in the world’s most powerful country. Francis dug particularly sharply into what he called the “dung of the devil,” criticizing “the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.” And his Laudato si’ encyclical calling for “swift and unified global action” in defense of the environment undoubtedly gave momentum to the effort that led to a global climate change pact in Paris in December. 
 
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The pope’s unapologetic advocacy on behalf of the poor and the environment has only boosted his ­popularity—when he launched an Instagram account in March, he gained 1 million followers in 24 hours. But the tension between the Catholic Church’s culturally conservative adherents and its more socially progressive followers remains among Francis’s trickiest managerial challenges. He continues to thread a tight needle, making the church more welcoming to LGBT worshippers and divorced Catholics while assuring traditionalists that he isn’t changing doctrine.

Pope Francis

Tim Cook and other Silicon Valley luminaries have been quietly playing tug-of-war with Washington over digital privacy for years—at least since Edward Snowden leaked disclosures about government surveillance back in 2013. But this year, when a court ordered Apple to create a backdoor for an iPhone used by a suspect in the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., Tim Cook had a resounding answer: Back off. In a letter to Apple customers, Cook called the FBI’s demands “chilling” and “an overreach.” While op tech execs have lined up behind Cook, it’s Apple that is facing the FBI in the showdown. Cook has put Apple’s popularity at stake in defense of principle: In a Pew Research Center survey, a majority (51% to 38%) said that Apple should comply with the FBI’s request. But court filings by the Justice Department suggest that it may blink before Cook does.

Tim Cook

He can boast a best-song Oscar, 10 Grammys, and at least 6 million albums sold. But Legend, 37, also embraces the grunt work of philanthropy—serving on boards, penning editorials, conducting listening tours in prisons and schools—and his advocacy is attracting as much attention as his hits. Last fall the Show Me Campaign, an ­education-oriented nonprofit Legend founded, launched #FREEAMERICA, a drive to ­reduce mass incarceration. In a Time op-ed, Legend called on legislatures to “ban the box” requiring job applicants to state whether they have a criminal record—a hurdle that makes it hard for rehabilitated felons to reenter society. The movement took on momentum in November when President Obama banned the box in federal hiring, and it’s one reason the NAACP just gave Legend its President’s Award, a service honor typically given to people decades older.

John Legend

If Mother Nature held auditions for a guardian, Figueres, 59, would be first in line. The daughter of a Costa Rican President who led a landmark revolution in 1948, Figueres became the United Nations climate-change chief in 2010, tasked with nothing less than halting the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming. For six years she worked to convince governments that a binding agreement on limiting carbon emissions and slowing fossil fuel-led growth was in the world’s best interest. 
 
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Figueres’s efforts culminated in December at the Paris climate conference, where 195 countries signed a deal committing them to limit worldwide temperature increases to no more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels, a critical if hard-to-attain benchmark. “To bring all countries together on something everyone has been fighting on for decades, and to get them to agree, was brilliant,” says Jean Krasno, a political science lecturer at City College of New York and the author of The United Nations: Confronting the Challenges of a Global Society. Figueres is stepping down in July, and many believe she could become the first woman to be named UN Secretary-General.

Christiana Figueres

It’s either a high compliment to Paul Ryan or an indictment of his party—or both—that whenever Republicans drive into a ditch, their leaders hand the keys to the 46-year-old Wisconsinite. Ryan’s singular status as a wonk with vision and the respect of the GOP’s disparate factions keep them coming back. Last fall Ryan played the reluctant savior amid the chaos following then-Speaker John Boehner’s ouster by far-right rebels, quitting his beloved Ways and Means Committee to lead the chamber. Now some pooh-bahs want him to reprise the role by agreeing to run for President. This time, Ryan swears he’s staying put.

Paul Ryan

To say it is unlikely for a Supreme Court Justice to become a cultural icon is an understatement. But that’s exactly what has happened to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Thanks to a 2015 book that in turn expanded on a law student’s fan site on ­Tumblr, she is now known on the Internet, on T-shirts, and to young women everywhere as “Notorious RBG.” Deservedly praised for her intellect, skill, resilience, and strong voice on everything from voting to women’s rights, Ginsburg’s leadership was never more on display than in the respect she showed after the passing of her colleague, friend, and ideological opposite, Justice Antonin Scalia, earlier this year. In a political season when one could question our capacity and even desire to find common ground with those having opposing viewpoints, Ginsburg serves as an example for us all in her ability to connect in the service of a mission more significant than one’s self-interest. 
 
—Dov Seidman, chief executive of LRN, and author of "HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything"

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As the only female leader among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation member states, ­Hasina has deftly navigated the competing demands of Islamic tradition and women’s rights. She has committed Bangladesh, the nation with the world’s fourth-largest Muslim population, to securing legal protections for women and helping them attain more education, financial freedom, and political power. About 30% of adult women in Bangladesh now have at least a secondary ­education—and the ­nation scores better on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index than any other South Asian country.

Sheikh Hasina

The dynasty was over. That was the consensus of the pundits after Alabama’s 43–37 loss to Ole Miss in its third game of the season last September. The famed “process” that Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban, 64, had used to win three national titles in football at Bama—while boosting graduation rates—and one at LSU had run its course, and the competition had caught up. Saban challenged his team: “How are you going to respond?” When Alabama defeated Clemson 45–40 for another title on Jan. 11, 2016, he had his answer, and the dynasty—and Saban’s legacy as a leader—remained intact.

Nick Saban

Tencent’s WeChat social network has 700 million users and is as ubiquitous in China as Facebook is outside it. That helps make Ma the 10th-richest person in tech (Tencent’s shares rose 20% last year) and someone with a major influence on shaping the habits of China’s growing middle class. Already Tencent’s WeBank is extending loans to Chinese consumers not well served by state-owned banks. Tencent’s dominance has come with concessions: Researchers say WeChat is increasingly monitored by the government. It will remain Ma’s balancing act to keep both users and censors happy.

Huateng "Pony" Ma

Moro, a 42-year-old telegenic federal judge, is the main protagonist in Brazil’s real-life edition of The Untouchables. Moro has led the prosecution of a brazen corruption scheme that siphoned $3 billion from Petrobras, the national oil company, to the pockets of politicians and officials. President Dilma Rousseff risks impeachment, and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reputation is in tatters. And more important: The passive coexistence with corruption long endemic in Latin America is becoming a habit of the past. 
 
—Moisés Naím, distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Sergio Moro

In 1984, Bono was one of almost 40 pop stars who recorded (and in some circles were mocked for) the anti-famine fundraising single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Thirty-two years later, he’s still walking the walk. The Irish rock icon now leads One, a data-driven, global organization that influences governments, rallies C-suites, and raises millions of dollars for people living in poverty. His secret: an ability to convince others that they are the true leaders of change, not him. 
 
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Read more about Bono in Ellen McGirt's profile, "<a href="http://fortune.com/bono-u2-one/">Bono: I Will Follow</a>." 
 
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Bono

Perhaps it is their ordinariness that sets them apart. Neither would look out of place showing up to the noon run at the local Y, a couple of spindly, amiable, not-quite-tall but not-quite-short guys. Indeed, we look at Steve Kerr and Steph Curry and want to think: That could be us. 
 
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Of course, it couldn’t. They are the two best three-point marksman, by percentage, in NBA history. Kerr has more championship rings than he can fit on his shooting hand. Curry is en route to a second MVP while logging a historic scoring season, obliterating the previous mark for made three-pointers, skewing every analytic measure created, and redefining how a generation of kids views the game. 
 
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To spend time around the Warriors as they chase down history is to see each lead in his own way. Kerr is self-deprecating, with a dry wit. Repeatedly, he makes it clear that this is about the team, not him – declining media profiles, redirecting credit, adopting an “I’m-just-lucky-to-be-here” stance. Behind the scenes, he empowers those around him to make decisions, reinforces the value of work/life balance (he recently brought in Michael Lewis to talk to the team), prepares assiduously, and meets problems head-on, going to players directly rather than through an intermediary. 
 
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In Curry, Kerr presides over the rare star who is, as the coach puts it, is “humble yet arrogant”—arrogant on the court and humble everywhere else. Curry rarely speaks up – he lets fiery forward Draymond Green do the preaching and castigating—but teammates notice his hours of extra training, his focus on family, the joy he takes in the game, and how he conducts himself publicly, forever gracious and accommodating despite adoration that’s led to his jersey becoming the best-selling across all sports. 
 
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Together, the two men thrive on being underestimated but, as anyone who’s watched their end-of-practice free throw shooting duels knows, they are fierce competitors. Strive to win; enjoy the process. This is the combination that fuels the Warriors. 
 
—Chris Ballard, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated and a Bay Area native

Stephen Curry and Steve Kerr

At a moment when it seems most urgent, Stevenson has emerged as one of the nation’s most effective crusaders against inequity in the criminal justice system. Stevenson founded the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative in 1989. It was his argument that persuaded the Supreme Court to end life-without-parole sentences for children in 2012, and EJI has freed 115 wrongly condemned prisoners from death row. Last year EJI documented thousands of past lynchings that occurred across the South; the group’s next move, with funding from Google, will be to create civil rights memorial sites across the country.

Bryan Stevenson

While the most successful Republican pol builds a following by stirring resentment, Haley is proving that Trumpism isn’t the only way. South Carolina’s Indian-American governor was among the earliest in her party to call out the GOP presidential front-runner, warning against “the siren call of the angriest voices”—in a nationally televised State of the Union response, no less. Last summer, following the massacre of nine African Americans in a Charleston church, Haley engineered the removal of the Confederate flag from state capitol grounds, setting off a movement across the South to pack away the charged symbol. 
 
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An earlier version of this article gave the incorrect age for Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley

Hamilton, a musical biography of the bastard immigrant who became the first U.S. Treasury secretary, ranks among the most inventive, emotionally gripping theater pieces ever written. But as giddily virtuosic as Miranda’s music and lyrics are, it’s the casting concept that reveals the profundity of his vision. Without comment or apology, black and Hispanic actors (including Miranda, as Hamilton) portray every Founding Father. It’s Miranda’s way of asserting that America’s ideals belong to everyone—and it’s arguably the most optimistic, civic-minded statement any artist is making today.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Not long ago, J.C. Penney looked like a failed department store destined to die. But Marvin Ellison, CEO since August after nine months as president, has engineered a stunning (if still early) turnaround, improving store layouts, fixing e-commerce operations, and chipping away at Penney’s huge debt. Shares are up 75% in 2016 on renewed optimism about the company. And Ellison owes much of his success to his belief in talking regularly to his troops in the field rather than issuing diktats from on high, an approach that has galvanized a workforce still traumatized by Penney’s near collapse. 
 
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Read more about Marvin Ellison in "<a href="http://fortune.com/j-c-penney-reinvention/" target="_blank">The CEO Who's Reinventing J.C. Penney</a>."

Marvin Ellison

In a TED talk in February, which has since accrued more than 800,000 views, Saujani stressed teaching girls to be brave rather than perfect. She’s well-qualified to preach that message: It took the former Wall Street attorney three tries to get into Yale Law School. Girls Who Code, which aims to get more women into computer science, is seeing plenty of early success: By the end of 2016, more than 40,000 girls will have gone through its training and internship programs. This summer, Girls Who Code will dole out $1 million in scholarships (classes are already free, but scholarships pay for transportation and other costs).

Reshma Saujani

Larry Fink built BlackRock into the largest investment firm in the world, with $4.6 trillion in assets under management. And two years ago he took it upon himself to redefine the relationship between the Fortune 500 and Wall Street. Fink wrote a letter to the CEOs of nearly every large company in America deploring the corporate culture of short-term thinking and threatening to vote out board members who didn’t hold management accountable. Other large investment firms have followed BlackRock’s lead—and Hillary Clinton adopted a tax proposal, similar to one Fink outlined, that would pressure shareholders to hold their investments longer. "If the system is really going to change, pressure needs to come from the investment community," says Rick Wartzman, senior advisor at the Drucker Institute. "And no voice has been more important or more forceful in this regard than Larry Fink's." 
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Larry Fink

On July 17, 1975, 229 kilometers above the earth, two orbiting spacecraft floated into a historic embrace. When the hatches between them were opened, Apollo astronaut Thomas ­Stafford greeted cosmonaut Alexey Leonov of Soyuz 19, as millions of TV viewers watched in awe. That “handshake in space,” as it came to be known, was a breathtaking act of diplomacy in the midst of the Cold War, a symbol that even the globe’s wariest antagonists could find common ground—at least in a place where there was none. Some four decades later, U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have not only reprised that goodwill gesture, but elevated it into an opus of statesmanship. The two men returned to earth on March 2 after working side by side for 340 days in the International Space Station, a journey in which they circled the planet 5,440 times, traveled 144 million miles (nearly the distance from the earth to Mars), and conducted more than 400 scientific experiments—profoundly ­expanding our understanding of space’s effects on human ­beings and showing that, when it comes to the final frontier, there is no border between nations.

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko

Miliband has his hands full with the Syrian crisis: Since 2014, the IRC has provided aid to more than 1 million refugees. But his bigger ambition, he tells Fortune, is to transform the “humanitarian sector” into a “humanitarian system,” one that helps coordinate the long-term giving of big donors, enables charitable groups to operate more efficiently—and in return, provides donors with more transparency. That would meet an urgent need: With 20 million refugees worldwide and another 40 million people displaced in their home countries, the international aid community could use better ways to collaborate.

David Miliband

When Chávez, the first person of color to head the scouts, took the helm in 2011, the 104-year-old institution seemed to be creeping toward anachronism. Not anymore. Chávez has added new badges in fields like financial literacy and STEM education. You can now buy Girl Scout cookies online. And Chávez has teamed with the likes of Sheryl Sandberg (on a campaign to encourage leadership among girls), First Lady Michelle Obama (who recorded a scouts recruitment video), and even Chris Rock, who collected more than $65,000 during the Oscars in donations and sales of Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

Anna Maria Chávez

In February, President Obama nominated Hayden to lead the ­Library of Congress. If confirmed, she will be the first woman and the first African American to do so—and fresh leadership for a 216-year-old institution in sore need of a technological upgrade. Hayden knows plenty about sustaining a library as a relevant and inclusive institution. In Baltimore, where she has run the Enoch Pratt Free Library system for 23 years, she has modernized early and often. When violence erupted near one branch last April, Hayden kept it open—a safe, trusted space for community members.

Carla Hayden

For decades fiscal mismanagement and corruption have made Argentina an economic backwater. But Macri, the new President, has foreigners and Argentines alike expressing optimism about the country again. Macri, the former governor of Buenos Aires, won a very close election last fall against a ruling party dominated by cronies of Argentina’s past leaders. Among his first acts: reintegrating Argentina in the global economy by pledging to repay debts on which it had defaulted. The country “is fast becoming a model to its neighbors,” says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Maurizio Macri

Modern social movements often fizzle after their moment in the national news (Occupy Wall Street comes to mind), but Black Lives Matter has steadily gained momentum since its founding in 2013. The Black Lives Matter network has grown to 28 local chapters, all fighting injustices like police brutality and racial profiling. Last year the movement inspired college students to take up the mantle with some successes (the system president and chancellor of the University of Missouri resigned over outcry that they had failed to address campus racism) and pushed presidential candidates to address the country’s systemic racial problems— an issue would-be nominees would have preferred to sidestep.

Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi

Smog is a daily phenomenon in every major Chinese city. But until former CCTV reporter Chai Jing released the powerful documentary Under the Dome last year on the causes of gray skies—failed government policies, feckless regulators, corruption—and their effects, including skyrocketing cancer rates, shorter life-spans, and childhood illnesses, China’s middle class had mostly taken it with a shrug. Chai’s 104-minute documentary drew 200 million views online in a week before government censors took it down. It created a groundswell of concern and anger that continues today.

Chai Jing

Moncef Slaoui has spent his career attacking the under-researched diseases that plague the developing world. He already has a cervical-cancer vaccine and a pneumococcal immunization to his credit, and in 2015 he won European approval for the world’s first malaria vaccine, which could limit the spread of a disease that kills more than half a million people a year. 
 
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Vaccine development is a passion that’s deeply personal for Slaoui: His sister died from whooping cough, an ­immunizable disease, while they were growing up in Morocco. On his horizon at GlaxoSmithKline: an Ebola vaccine.

Moncef Slaoui

Oliver’s cerebral deep dives into social injustices on his HBO show, Last Week Tonight, have created a new form factor in comedy—call it “investi-comedy.” There isn’t a topic he won’t tackle, from the plight of chicken farmers to native advertising to net neutrality. He insists he’s no more than a comedian, but he has effected change: His net-neutrality piece, for example, was credited for a shift in the FCC’s position (and for crashing the agency’s website). His merciless pre–Super Tuesday takedown of Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been viewed more than 22 million times on YouTube.

John Oliver

Edwards, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, is one of the nation’s top experts on water contamination—and nowhere has his impact been bigger than in Flint, Mich. In August, Edwards and a team of researchers made the 11-hour bus ride from Virginia to Flint. There, the group acted as scientists, journalists, and advocates, collecting hundreds of water samples, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, and updating the public through a blog. Edwards’s team proved that Flint’s water supply was poisoning its residents­—triggering state and federal intervention and a nationwide debate over water safety.

Marc Edwards

If the right is to have a shot at steering American public policy, Arthur Brooks will be one of the architects of its vision. His conservatism stands for something more than tax cuts for the rich and ever-tighter ­restrictions on abortions. The New York Times’ David Brooks described it as “capitalism for the masses”: It includes a heavy emphasis on social entrepreneurship—leveraging business techniques to solve social problems. Not what you’d expect from a Seattle-born French-horn player. 
 
—David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center at the Brookings Institution

Arthur Brooks

On Feb. 12, 2014, 11-year-old Luke Batty was killed with a cricket bat by his own father, who was then shot and killed by police. The next day, Luke’s mother, Rosie, stood in front of television cameras and calmly said, “Family violence happens to everybody.” Thus began a nationwide road trip that has seen Batty selflessly put domestic violence on the Australian agenda in a country where one in five women has experienced sexual violence after age 15. “She moved forward the issue by a decade or more,” says Jeremy Lasek, whose government organization named Batty the Australian of the Year for 2015.

Rosie Batty

When Griest, a platoon leader, and ­Haver, an Apache helicopter pilot, enrolled in the Army’s notoriously grueling Ranger School, they were simply soldiers. When they graduated in ­August—the first women ever to do so—they were icons. What got them through the brutal regimen of runs, marches, and other mental and physical trials? “I was thinking really of future generations of women—that I would like them to have the opportunity,” said Griest. Their accomplishment, astounding in its own right, transformed the debate about women in warfare, proving that women can perform on the battlefield as ably as men. And that undoubtedly buttressed the Pentagon’s December decision to open all combat positions to women—without exceptions.

Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, militiamen use sexual violence as a tool of war—at the height of the country’s decades-long conflict, 48 Congolese women every hour were raped. Congolese surgeon and gynecologist Denis Mukwege, who founded a hospital in the epicenter of the violence, has treated tens of thousands of victims—some of them children of rape themselves. Despite censorship by the Congolese government, attacks, and an assassination attempt, Mukwege has continually returned to the operating theater, and he has campaigned fiercely worldwide to bring the military use of sexual violence to an end.

Denis Mukwege

The former French Finance Minister fought to keep the eurozone together in her first term as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, an accomplishment that helped her earn (unopposed) another five-year term. She faces comparable challenges today, among them avoiding a debt crisis in emerging markets, keeping China committed to the path of market reforms, and persuading Congress to honor the reforms the U.S. agreed to in the wake of the 2008 crisis. That may still leave her some time for another cause she favors: boosting female workforce participation in the developing world.

Christine Lagarde

If there’s a poster boy for the era of socially active CEOs, it’s—quite easily—Marc Benioff, who has masterfully mobilized his company as a vehicle for his social agenda. He was one of the loudest opponents of Indiana’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom” law last year, announcing that his $5.4 billion cloud-based software company would boycott the state altogether. (That law was amended; Benioff is now fighting a similar measure in Georgia.) He has also emerged as a pay-equity pioneer, tackling the stubborn gender pay gap by examining the methodology used to compensate his own 16,000 employees and mandating that women make up 30% of all meeting attendees.

Marc Benioff

America’s smallest state just tackled one of the country’s biggest fiscal problems. Countless state and local governments struggle with under­financed pension plans, and Rhode Island’s was one of the worst before 2014. That’s when Gina Raimondo, then state treasurer, engineered an overhaul that slashed cost-of-living increases and pointed the system toward solvency. Public-sector unions fulminated and sued, but voters rewarded Raimondo by electing her governor. In 2015 she negotiated legal settlements that preserved her pension reforms, inspiring hope in cash-strapped statehouses everywhere.

Gina Raimondo

As special adviser on post-2015 development planning to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Mohammed had to rally 193 countries to endorse the same objectives for the next 15 years. Acting as the point person for the Sustainable Development Goals, she helped bridge the divide between developing countries and First World nations, and by September all member states signed on to 17 goals related to wiping out poverty and tackling climate change. Now Nigeria’s Environment Minister, Mohammed is trying to make renewables a bigger factor in the oil-producing country’s energy strategy.

Amina Mohammed

For decades emigration drained life from Riace, a village of 2,000 on the Calabrian coast. When a boatload of Kurdish refugees reached its shores in 1998, Lucano, then a schoolteacher, saw an opportunity. He offered them Riace’s abandoned apartments along with job training. Eighteen years on, Mayor Lucano is hailed for saving the town, whose population now includes migrants from 20-some nations, and rejuvenating its economy. (Riace has hosted more than 6,000 asylum seekers in all.) Though his pro-refugee stance has pitted him against the mafia and the state, Lucano’s model is being studied and adopted as Europe’s refugee crisis crests.

Domenico Lucano

For the past 15 years, the Gates Foundation has leveraged its $44.3 billion endowment to attempt to eradicate diseases like malaria in the developing world. Under new CEO Desmond-­Hellmann, a former Genentech product chief, the foundation could become an even bigger player in global health. Last year the foundation financed a prototype of a plant that converts human feces into drinkable water; meanwhile, a $1.5 billion commitment to vaccination organization Gavi will ensure that an additional 300 million children will be vaccinated by 2020.

Melinda Gates and Susan Desmond-Hellmann

When Kejriwal unveiled a blueprint to tackle the smog in New Delhi—called the world’s most polluted city by the World Health Organization—many were skeptical. A key component: an “odd-even” pilot project in which vehicles were allowed on the roads only on alternate days. The uplifting result of the pilot this January: Roads were less clogged, hourly particulate air pollution concentrations dropped by 13%, and citizens could breathe deep.

Arvind Kejriwal

For much of white America, Ramos became a household name only after Donald Trump kicked him out of a press conference in August. But Ramos, who has co-hosted Univision’s flagship Spanish-language news show for almost 30 years, might be the most influential journalist in the U.S.  Ramos is part journalist, part advocate, a newsman who hammers candidates on immigration policy even as he urges Hispanic Americans to register to vote. Political analysts have found that Latinos are twice as likely to vote if they frequently watch Spanish-language news, a correlation they dubbed the “Jorge Ramos effect.”

Jorge Ramos

Froman traces his friendship with President Obama to their days on the Harvard Law Review. That pedigree helped the trade ambassador win the argument within the White House for chasing the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest regional trade pact in history. Capitol Hill has proved a tougher sell, but Froman’s pitch job helped overcome Democratic resistance last year and kept the package inching forward. Now populist crosswinds from the presidential campaign threaten the deal anew. Froman may need a buzzer beater, in the post-election lame-duck session, to salvage his world-bending project.

Michael Froman

While some climate-related threats can seem abstract, water scarcity is visceral and immediate, palpable in the crunch of drought-ravaged crops or the sting of a parched throat. Guli, an Australian corporate-lawyer-turned-activist, started Thirst to educate consumers about water conservation, but this year the 45-year-old upped the ante, running 40 marathons across seven deserts on seven continents—in just seven weeks—while collecting conservation pledges online. On March 22, World Water Day, she completed her 1,048-mile journey. “Never seen a better example yet of #gobigorgohome,” tweeted a fan in Hong Kong.

Mina Guli

In the 1970s oil generated half of Uruguay’s electricity. Now renewables provide 94.5%, making this South American nation of 3 million a guiding light in how to decarbonize your economy. As national director of energy, Méndez oversaw the transformation, capitalizing on the nation’s blustery weather to build wind farms and tapping hydropower and biomass. “The decisions Uruguay took benefited the climate yet also made economic sense,” says Joe Thwaites, research analyst at the World Resources Institute. Méndez’s next ambitious goal: an 88% cut in carbon emissions by 2017.

Ramón Mendéz

Counterfeit drugs are rife in Africa—one estimate pegs the chances of purchasing one at 30%, and in 2013 more than 120,000 African children died because of poor-quality anti­malarials. Simons, a 34-year-old entrepreneur from Ghana, offered a boldly simple solution: Africans could check the authenticity of medications by sending mPedigree a text message with the special 12-digit code marked on their drug packet. Now mPedigree has its labels on more than 500 million packets, with clients including giants AstraZeneca and Sanofi. The company is currently active in 12 countries in the developing world.

Bright Simons

As the political systems of the U.S. and Europe heave with anger and dysfunction, Canada’s new Prime ­Minister offers an upbeat contrast. Having won election decisively in October, Trudeau has rallied the public behind ambitious plans for climate change—he wants to reduce methane emissions, which trap heat at a far greater rate than CO2—and a pledge to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees. He is also moving to legalize marijuana. And he’s doing it with a soft-swagger optimism that’s rare in Western democracies right now.

Justin Trudeau

Through her website Sarawak Report, London-based journalist Brown has become an irritant in the corridors of power in Malaysia. Her exposés on state investment fund 1MDB—publicizing the alleged siphoning of $700 million into the pockets of Prime Minister Najib Razak—have made her a hero and a villain in the country, depending on whom you ask. The government has tried to arrest her for “activities detrimental to Parliamentary democracy” and has banned her website, a move that prompted advocacy group Reporters Without Borders to unblock access and help get her revelations out.

Clare Rewcastle Brown

Tshering Tobgay is only the second Prime Minister to govern the Maryland-size country of Bhutan since it held its first democratic election in 2008. He still uses the old monarchy’s Gross National Happiness Index, compiled through surveys of citizens, to measure the country’s progress, but he has also turned to more concrete goals, like harnessing the economic potential of the Himalayan nation’s hydropower. And he’s sustaining the country’s environmental commitment: Bhutan has maintained its unique status as a carbon-­negative country, serving as a “sink” for about 4 million tons of CO2 a year.

Tshering Tobgay

In business, government, philanthropy and the arts, and all over the globe, these men and women are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same. Check out our third annual list.