President Erdogan and Hamdi Ulukaya On Time's 100 Influential People List

This year’s 14th annual issue features five worldwide covers, each featuring a member of the TIME 100: singer John Legend, actress Viola Davis, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, philanthropist Melinda Gates, and British actor Riz Ahmed.

“Some years the list has the feel of a loose, lively dinner party, people who mostly don’t know each other but would get along if they did. This year is a bit more complicated,” says TIME editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs in her essay introducing the 2017 list. “These past 12 months have sharpened our edges as political debates in the U.S. and Europe, the Middle East and Asia, turned jagged and primal and seem almost perfectly designed to divide us more deeply.”

She singles out several people — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, FBI Director James Comey and White House adviser Stephen Bannon — as examples of individuals who influenced heated debates.

“In divisive times, it’s tempting to nestle in a comfort zone, surrounded by people who look like us, think like us,pray like us, vote like us,” Gibbs writes.” Yet many of the men and women on this year’s list are calling us out, using the technologies that connect us to expand how we see the world.”

 Each person on the list, which includes 40 women, is introduced in a profile written by another notable figure. for example, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote about Ahmed, John McCain introduced Comey, and Henry Kissinger profiled Kushner. Other writers include Sheryl Sandberg (Gates), Mikhail Gorbachev (Vladimir Putin), Taylor Swift (Ed Sheeran), and Ted Cruz (Mercer).

LGBT activist Gavin Grimm 17, is the youngest person on the list. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is 87, is the oldest.

The complete TIME 100 list can be found on the magazine's website and below:

Biram Dah Abeid, Mauritanian politician, activist

David Adjaye, architect

Riz Ahmed, actor

Thelma Aldana, Attorney General of Guatemala

James Allison, immunologist

Guillem Anglada-Escudé, Natalie Batalha and Michaël Gillon, astronomers

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks

Margaret Atwood, novelist

Stephen Bannon, White House Chief Strategist

Cindy Arlette Contreras Bautista, activist

Samantha Bee, actor, comedian

Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

Simone Biles, gymnast

Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour, organizers, Women’s March

Jason Blum, director

Tom Brady, football player, New England Patriots

Gretchen Carlson, advocate for workplace equality, former Fox News anchor

Chance the Rapper, rapper

George Church, geneticist

James Comey, director, FBI

James Corden, host, The Late Late Show with James Corden

Viola Davis, actor

Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines

Ava DuVernay, director

Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO, Spotify

Theo Epstein, president of baseball operations, Chicago Cubs

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey

Fan Bingbing, actor

Bob Ferguson, Attorney General of Washington

Melinda Gates, philanthropist

Donald Glover, actor, writer, rapper

Ashley Graham, model

Glenda Gray, physician and researcher

Kirsten Green, founder, Forerunner Ventures

Gavin Grimm, activist

Demis Hassabis, artificial intelligence pioneer

LeBron James, basketball player, Cleveland Cavaliers

Barry Jenkins, director

Leslie Jones, comedian, actor

Colin Kaepernick, football player

Alicia Keys, singer

Kim Jong Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea

Jared Kushner, White House senior adviser

John Legend, singer, songwriter

John Lewis, U.S. Congressman, 5th District of Georgia

Leila de Lima, Philippine opposition senator

Jean Liu, president, Didi Chuxing

Demi Lovato, singer

Barbara Lynch, chef, restaurateur

Kerry James Marshall, artist

General James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, U.S.

Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Conor McGregor, mixed martial artist

Rebekah Mercer, Republican donor

Alessandro Michele, designer, Gucci

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India

Neymar, soccer player

Sandra Day O'Connor, former Supreme Court Justice, founder, iCivics

Sarah Paulson, actor

Jordan Peele, actor, comedian, filmmaker

Tom Perez, chairman, Democratic National Committee

Ben Platt, actor

Pope Francis, Pontifex

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

Ryan Reynolds, actor

Margot Robbie, actor

RuPaul, television personality

Raed Saleh, head of Syria’s White Helmets

Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia

Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senator, New York

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, entrepreneur, founder, Paytm

Ed Sheeran, singer, songwriter

Cindy Sherman, photographer

Raf Simons, designer, chief creative officer, Calvin Klein

Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force

Evan Spiegel, CEO and co-founder, Snapchat

Emma Stone, actor

Donald Trump, President of the United States

Ivanka Trump, White House special assistant

Dr. Celina Turchi, infectious disease expert

Bernard J. Tyson, CEO, Kaiser Permanente

Hamdi Ulukaya, entrepreneur, CEO, Chobani

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, King of Thailand

Guus Velders, atmospheric chemist

Margrethe Vestager, antitrust czar, European Union

Jeanette Vizguerra, activist

Wang Qishan, senior leader, Communist Party, China

Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator, Massachusetts

Colson Whitehead, novelist

Constance Wu, actor

Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, General Secretary, Communist Party, China

Janet Yellen, chair, Federal Reserve

Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo


Eun Kyung Kim, TODAY.com