Influence — the power to persuade, advocate for change and imagine better ways of doing things — takes many forms. Nowhere is this more clear than in the magazine’s annual Women of the Year issue, a list of the world’s most influential women written about by other powerful women on the international stage.

This special project was assembled, over several months, in consultation with hundreds of FT journalists across dozens of bureaux, our readers and industry leaders. The end result is a list filled with women who have received prestigious accolades, but even Nobel Prizes, Pulitzers, Grammys and World Cups fail to fully capture the multi-faceted nature of their work.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes Lola Shoneyin’s work as a labour of love, noting that she “tirelessly splices present and future, nurturing what is, while making room for what will be”. It’s an apt description for the contributions made by all the exceptional women featured in this issue.