Three Indian-origin CEOs, Shantanu Narayen, Ajay Banga and Satya Nadella are among the world’s top 10 best-performing chief executives, featured in a list complied by the Harvard Business Review (HBR). ‘The Best-Performing CEOs in the World, 2019’ list by the HBR features 100 CEOs and has been topped by American technology company NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang.
Among the top 10 chief executives on the list, three spots have been occupied by the Indian-origin CEOs.
“Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen ranks 6th on the global list that names 100 chief executives, followed by MasterCard’s Ajay Banga (7th) and Microsoft’s (LinkedIn’s parent) Satya Nadella (9th)”
The list, topped by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, evaluates C-suite leaders on financial performance as well as environmental, social and governance ratings. Other notable Indian-origin CEOs helming top global companies include Google’s Sundar Pichai, Nokia’s Rajeev Suri, and SanDisk’s Sanjay Mehrotra.
The list also includes Nike CEO Mark Parker ranked 20, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon (23), Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson (37), Disney CEO Robert Iger (55) and SoftBank head Masayoshi Son (96). The HBR said since 2015, its ranking has been based not only on financial performance but also on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who has been the top CEO every year since 2014 on the basis of financial performance alone, failed to make this year’s list owing to Amazon’s relatively low ESG scores.
To compile the list of the world’s best-performing CEOs, HBR said it began with the companies that at the end of 2018 were in the S&P Global 1200, which is an index that reflects 70 per cent of the world’s stock market capitalisation and includes firms in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia.
