How We Chose the 2026 TIME Executives of the Year: Tech and Data

Among them are Bartley Richardson, CrowdStrike’s chief AI and autonomous systems officer, who is heading up a new AI research lab dedicated to building autonomous cybersecurity systems, and Reddit chief technology officer (CTO) Amit Puntambekar, who is shepherding AI adoption at one of the internet’s largest repositories of human conversation. At pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., Diogo Rau oversaw the effort to build a supercomputer called LillyPod, which models biological processes and screens potential molecules before promising candidates enter wet lab experiments. Meanwhile, at OpenAI, Vijaye Raji, CTO of applications, is in charge of key technical teams—such as data, experimentation, and growth—that help power the ubiquitous ChatGPT, as well as the coding tool Codex.

To create the list, our editors and reporters across the newsroom evaluated the scale of each leader’s responsibilities, the significance of the investments and initiatives they oversee, and their demonstrated impact on how their organization operates, competes, and grows. What came together was a group of executives tasked with modernizing legacy systems and digital infrastructure. Those leaders include Monica Caldas, Liberty Mutual’s global chief information officer, who is rewiring the century-old insurance company for what she calls “the intelligence era,” and Ogi Redzic, who joined Caterpillar Inc. as SVP and chief digital officer in 2018 and has helped the equipment manufacturer rebuild itself around data to address customers’ labor and safety issues.