An Annual Recognition From Meridian International Center
The New Architects of American Influence
Twenty-five leaders working beyond government whose work this year is strengthening America's partnerships, sharpening its competitive edge, and shaping how the United States is understood around the world.
Who is shaping how America competes, partners, and leads in the world today?
American influence no longer moves only through embassies, treaties, and diplomats. It is also shaped by the leaders building the technologies, institutions, economic partnerships, cultural platforms, infrastructure, and civic networks that connect the United States to the world.
From artificial intelligence and critical minerals to sports, culture, supply chains, universities, and cities, these leaders are expanding America’s reach and changing how the country competes, collaborates, and builds trust.
The New Architects of American Influence makes this new framework of diplomacy visible and identifies the 25 leaders working beyond government shaping America’s global reach. For more than six decades, Meridian has operated at the intersection of government, business, culture, and civil society—bringing together the people and institutions that sustain U.S. engagement around the world. This position gives Meridian a distinctive vantage point into how global influence is built, exercised, and expanded. That experience forms the foundation of this list.
The Framework
What is Open Diplomacy?
For most of history, diplomacy was the domain of governments — negotiated in official channels, led by credentialed diplomats, measured in treaties and communiqués. That model remains essential. But it no longer fully accounts for how American influence actually moves.
Open Diplomacy is Meridian International Center's framework for the architecture of American influence today: the builders, investors, scientists, athletes, artists, and civic leaders who shape how the world sees and engages with the United States, and who operate outside traditional government channels.
The New Architects of American Influence identifies these individuals, examines their impact, and establishes a first-of-its-kind record of how their contributions strengthen America's global position—and are as influential as any formal diplomatic channel — and increasingly, more consequential.
The Manifest
The Criteria and Selection Process
The New Architects of American Influence is Meridian International Center's definitive list of the individuals reshaping how the world sees, understands, and engages with the United States.
In its inaugural year, we are answering one defining question: Who is shaping American influence in the world right now?
Nominations
Nominations open July 22 and close August 10. Individuals and organizations around the world are invited to submit candidate; all nominations will be reviewed by Meridian’s Selection Committee. We will announce one honoree a day for 15 days starting on Thursday, October 1st, culminating in the announcement of the top 10 on Friday, October 16th at the 15th Annual Meridian Summit in Washington, DC.
Methodology
Meridian’s Open Diplomacy framework considers American influence through four sectors that play an increasingly outsized role in how the United States engages and leads in the world: business and investment; sports and culture; technology and innovation; and state and local leadership. Within these sectors, nominees are evaluated based on the nature, scale, and timing of their contributions, using four guiding criteria.
Guiding Criteria
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Influence built through private enterprise, civil society, culture, science, and education — working alongside formal diplomacy, not as a substitute for it.
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Recognition grounded in specific, verifiable impact: a partnership built, a market opened, a relationship forged.
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Work that creates a direct, traceable link between the United States and the world, extending America's reach in ways no embassy or treaty can achieve alone.
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Recognized in the year the work matters most. Not a lifetime achievement award — a live proof point of American leadership in real time.
The Four Sectors of Influence
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The investors, builders, and partnership architects expanding American economic reach and forging commercial ties across global markets
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The athletes, artists, and cultural institutions building American soft power and global trust
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AI, quantum computing, frontier tech, and the digital and orbital infrastructure shaping global competition
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Governors, mayors, and subnational officials building international partnerships, attracting global investment, and projecting American leadership beyond Washington
Nominations Close August 10
Submit a Nomination
What Makes a Strong Case
Open Diplomacy is built by people, not titles.
Strong nominations should center on a specific achievement from the last year—not a career’s worth of credentials. The work should draw a direct link between the United States and the world, extend the reach of formal diplomacy, and be grounded in measurable action: a named partnership, investment, market, platform, initiative, or breakthrough.
We are looking for leaders whose impact is current, distinct, and consequential—and whose work is changing how America engages, competes, and leads globally.
Who Is Eligible
This nomination recognizes leaders advancing American influence from outside government—through business, civil society, philanthropy, technology, media, sports, or culture. Current federal elected officials, appointees, and official diplomats are not eligible by design. This distinction is intentional: the list honors influence that complements official diplomacy rather than originates within it.
Past government service does not disqualify a nominee. What matters is where their influence resides today and how their work advances American interests and global leadership.
Honorees need not be U.S. citizens, but their work must meaningfully support American interests, values, or international partnerships.