- Three CEOs of Indian origin, Shantanu Narayen, Ajay Banga, and Satya Nadella are among the top 10 best-performing CEOs in the world, listed in a Harvard Business Review (HBR) compliant list.
- Since 2015, the HBR has reported that its ranking is based not only on financial performance but also on ratings for economic, social and governance (ESG).
Three CEOs of Indian origin, Shantanu Narayen, Ajay Banga, and Satya Nadella are among the top 10 best-performing CEOs in the world, listed in a Harvard Business Review (HBR) compliant list.
The HBR List of Best-Performing CEOs in the World, 2019 ‘ stars 100 CEOs and was top-up by Jensen Huang, CEO of American technology firm NVIDIA.
The Indian-origin CEOs held three spots among the top 10 chief executives on the index.
On the 6th spot is Narayen, Adobe CEO, followed by Banga, MasterCard CEO, ranked 7th and Nadella, chief of Microsoft, ranked 9th. The list also stars DBS Bank Piyush Gupta’s Indian-born CEO at the 89th location. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, ranks 62nd.
The list includes 20-ranked Adidas CEO Mark Parker, 23-ranked JPMorgan Chase Chief Jamie Dimon, 37-ranked Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson, 55-ranked Disney CEO Bob Iger, and Masayoshi Son, 96-ranked SoftBank Leader.
Since 2015, the HBR has reported that its ranking is based not only on financial performance but also on ratings for economic, social and governance (ESG).
Because of Amazon’s relatively low ESG scores, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who has been the top CEO every year since 2014 on the basis of financial performance alone, failed to make the list this year.
To compile the list of the best-performing CEOs in the world, HBR said it started with the companies that were in the S&P Global 1200 at the end of 2018, an index that reflects 70 percent of the world’s stock market capitalization and includes companies in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia.
The HBR took into account three metrics for each CEO’s tenure— the overall shareholder return (including reinvested dividends) adjusted by country and sector, and improvement in market capitalization (adjusted for dividends, stock problems, and share repurchases) calculated in USD adjusted for inflation.
In the top half of the rankings, the 2019 list includes four female CEOs, up from three in 2018 and only two in previous years.
“Every year when HBR publishes this list, some readers protest against the lack of women; every year we respond by saying that this is not the result of the performance of female CEOs, but how few women serve in the role— a phenomenon that we also find regrettable,” said the magazine.
The executives on the list, on average, became CEOs at 45 years of age and have been in office for 15 years.
“The CEOs appearing in the list this year show remarkable longevity — and illustrate how happy boards are to allow a high-performing leader to stay in the job for many years,” he said.
