The CHROs, Chief People Officers and Total Rewards leaders who decide how organizations attract, reward and keep their people — recognized for shaping the work, and the conversation about it.
People leadership beyond HR operations — shaping talent strategy, culture, total rewards, and how the workforce is designed to win.
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A public voice
Leaders who show up to share the craft of the role — building the function, designing rewards, and where people strategy is heading next.
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Modernizing the function
Operators rethinking how People runs in an AI-driven economy — talent, total rewards, org design — while keeping the organization human.
Featured Stories
In Their Own Words
Recognition puts a name on the list. A feature is where that leader gets to explain how they actually operate, at length and in their own words. These are the Talent & Total Rewards leaders who have told theirs.
2 leaders have taken us up on it so far. Every leader named below is invited to do the same. It costs nothing, you keep control of the copy, and nothing publishes without your approval.
The Class of 2026
Hover or tap any leader to flip their card and read the citation. This roll call grows through the year as the class takes shape.
No leaders match that filter.
Featured Story
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Ana King
SAPI
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Ana King
Chief People Officer, SAPI
Ana King joined SAPI as its first people leader when the company was pre-revenue and losing the staff it could least afford to lose. Three years on she has built teams in the UK and Vietnam, hired without agencies, and made the case that people operations is a commercial function before it is anything else.
As chief people officer of the world’s largest private employer, Donna Morris shapes the working lives of more than two million people — translating immense scale into human-centered, frontline-first leadership.
Ethena’s Melanie Naranjo is one of the most trusted voices for business-forward people leaders, turning HR principle into practical action with candor and operating rigor.
Hebba Youssef runs people at Workweek and writes ’I Hate it Here,’ one of HR’s most-read voices — an honest, devoted-community take on what actually builds workplace culture.
Pat Wadors has led people at LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Procore and now Intuitive — a longtime champion of belonging and dyslexic thinking who builds teams through hypergrowth with real warmth.
Christy Pambianchi has shaped talent strategy at Corning, Verizon, Intel and now Caterpillar, connecting workforce strategy directly to business transformation at true Fortune-100 scale.
Q Hamirani helped Airbnb reimagine work and now leads people at HighLevel, bringing a builder’s instinct to talent and one of the more original lenses on humanizing AI at work.
Alim Dhanji brings a board-level, business-first view to people leadership at TD SYNNEX, framing talent strategy as a direct driver of enterprise growth.
As Zapier’s chief people and AI transformation officer, Brandon Sammut sits at the exact intersection reshaping work — one of the clearest thinkers on what AI means for how teams are built and led.
SolarWinds CPO David Hanrahan thinks out loud, unpacking the hard, current questions of HR — AI, high-performing teams and unlocking human potential — for a large practitioner following.
Yolanda Seals-Coffield leads people and inclusion for one of the country’s largest professional-services workforces, building trust at scale where talent is the product.
Issa Eid leads people for Nokia’s Cloud and Network Services with a storytelling-first, deeply human approach to building strong teams across cultures and geographies.
Three-time HR Executive of the Year, Stephen Childs leads people at Panasonic Automotive with a values-and-results philosophy and a generous habit of sharing what he’s learned.
Honed across Salesforce, MuleSoft and now Illumio, L. David Kingsley frames people strategy in the language of the business — talent as a driver of company performance.
With a McKinsey and Capital One background and an Oxford PhD, Kaleen Love leads people and culture for PMI’s US business through major transformation with analytical, perspective-led clarity.
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Ones to Watch
The leaders who stepped into the seat this year and are already impossible to ignore — a rolling sub-class refreshed as new chiefs make their mark.
Opening with the 2026 class
The Hall of Fame
Reserved for leaders who recur on the Power List year after year — recognition that their influence is a body of work, not a moment.
Inaugural induction · 2027
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