Behind the Scenes of TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year Issue
While the results may be different each year, the Person of the Year issue always starts the same way. Every fall, we ask TIME’s journalists to submit nominations for the people who had the most impact on the year. The newsroom meets, debates, and argues. Over the following weeks, we narrow the field to a small group of contenders and choose our selections across our categories—including, in 2025, CEO, Athlete, Entertainer, and Breakthrough of the Year.
A project of this scale brings together hundreds of people across the newsroom and our company, led by CEO Jessica Sibley. This year’s Person of the Year reporting team included Charlie Campbell, based in Singapore; Andrew R. Chow in Washington, D.C.; and Billy Perrigo in London—each of whom traveled across the world to interview AI leaders and speak with people whose lives have been impacted by AI in 2025. The story features photography by Frankie Alduino, Raul Ariano, Joe Pugliese, and Ko Tsuchiya. It was edited by Alex Altman and Dayana Sarkisova. For more of TIME’s AI coverage, subscribe to our AI newsletter, “In the Loop,” led by Perrigo and Chow.
Our CEO of the Year, Neal Mohan, was profiled by Belinda Luscombe, who’s become something of a YouTube correspondent for us, reporting on stars from mega-influencer MrBeast to Ryan Kaji, who at the ripe age of 10 once held a record for highest-paid individual on the platform. Mohan was photographed by Jessica Chou.
Sean Gregory continues his streak of writing or co-writing all of TIME’s Athlete of the Year profiles since we created the category in 2019. He traveled to Las Vegas to witness A’ja Wilson at the Aces’ raucous victory parade and interviewed the MVP in New York City. Her cover portrait was taken by Kanya Iwana.
TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek met with One Battle After Another star Leonardo DiCaprio, TIME’s Entertainer of the Year, in Los Angeles this fall. This year, Zacharek marks a decade covering film and the people who make movies for TIME. DiCaprio was photographed by Geordie Wood.
Eliza Berman, who has led TIME’s culture coverage since 2019, sat down with Ejae, Rei Ami, and Audrey Nuna, who are the main singing voices in KPop Demon Hunters, in New York City in October. She lived and breathed KPop Demon Hunters in 2025, using TikTok tutorials to fashion Rumi’s dragon braid from purple hair extensions for her daughter’s Halloween costume. The Demon Hunters team in Berlin created an exclusive animation for our cover, and inside the magazine we have photography by Poyen Chen.
Click here to buy your copy of the Person of the Year Collection
Photography for this issue was overseen by Katherine Pomerantz, Dilys Ng, Ava Selbach, and Kim Bubello; video by Justine Simons and Alexandra Robson; art direction by Chelsea Kardokus, Victor Williams, and D.W. Pine (who commissioned his 16th Person of the Year cover); audience-engagement strategy by Diana Elbasha; and our print and digital production by Lily Rothman and Merrill Fabry. Working with Lori Fradkin, Kelly Conniff oversaw this project for the third time.
This year’s “A Year in TIME” event, planned by Dan Macsai, Cate Matthews, Kara Simonetti, and Jeff Smith, was held in New York City the night before Person of the Year was announced. The evening included appearances from DiCaprio, Mohan, and Wilson, as well as a special performance of the chart-topping hit “Golden” by KPop Demon Hunters’ Ejae, Ami, and Nuna. A Year in TIME and Person of the Year are supported by Rolex, TIME’s official timepiece.
We are embracing AI at TIME too, and seeing how it can complement our storytelling and improve the experience for our audiences. On our website, in an effort led by Mark Howard and Michael Mraz, we have unveiled our new TIME AI Agent. For the first time ever, you can experience TIME’s entire archive in a personalized experience, enabling research, audio briefings, and translation into 13 different languages.