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Welcome to the 2010 CEO Awards. The “Most
Respected CEOs” edition is a collaborative
project between CEO Quarterly Magazine and the
International Institute of Management.
CEOs had a difficult year in 2009. The financial and
economic crises caused a great deal of damage
to the confidence of investors, consumers and
employees. CEOs had to make difficult decisions to
deal with declining revenues and layoffs, while at the
same time finding innovative ways to re-energize
growth. Several industries were hit the hardest
including financial, auto, housing, retail, media and
advertising industries. In the U.S. alone, more than
100 banks closed and more than 100 media outlets
went bankrupt or sold. Industry survivors were
especially considered for their abilities to lead in
difficult times.
The CEOs real test is not how well they
do during good economic times and
bull markets, but also how they manage
stakeholders’ interests and mitigate risks
during an economic downturn.
What are the CEO Awards selection criteria?
According to Med Jones, the president of
International Institute of Management, “At IIM we
wanted to identify the most respected CEOs, not
the most famous or most liked. The key criterion
for inclusion was the respectability of the CEO by
his/her stakeholders, namely the company’s clients,
employees and investors. Our team researched each
CEO by asking the stakeholders what they thought
of the CEO and his/her performance. While this was
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CEO Awards
Most Respected CEOs
a subjective measure, we also looked at objective
measures such as the CEO achievements relative
to his or her peers in the industry. Since 2009 was an
exceptionally difficult year, the CEO achievements
were judged less by the latest financial performance
and more by the long-term performance of the
company under the CEO’s leadership.
CEO achievements can be growth in revenues
and profits, turnaround, strategic expansion into
new markets, increasing market share relative to
competition, successful mergers or acquisitions,
introducing new breakthrough products/services,
pioneering new business models, and so on.
Unlike other CEO ranking lists, the CEO is not
judged in absolute terms of the revenue or asset
size of his company. The CEO of a smaller, but
well-managed company that provides higher growth
and better returns for investors is more likely to be
considered for inclusion than the CEO of a much
bigger company that has been losing money and
stock value for several quarters.
While the size of the company is an indicator of
the company’s position in its market and the CEO
abilities, it was not the main criteria for inclusion.
The track performance of the individual CEO is
considered more important.
The company’s performance is judged
relative to its competition and industry
conditions.
For example, banks that overcame the financial
crisis gain higher levels of respectability for surviving
the industry collapse, so the relative performance
expectation is different for each industry. CEOs
who survived the financial crisis received higher
respectability scores from their investors, clients
and employees, even when their revenues or profits
were down in 2009.
This year, we selected 18 CEOs from 17
publicly traded companies and 1 nonprofit
bank. Four special CEO honors went to:
•
•
•
Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan Motors,
for the successful turnaround of a
global giant, and for making a profit in
2009 during the worst global crisis to
hit the auto industry
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple for
transforming the way we use
phones and making Apple one of
the most valuable global brands
and companies in the world
Muhammad Yunus, CEO of
Grameen Bank for pioneering a
new model of successful multibillion
dollar social bank and
leveraging capitalism principles
that helped approximately 3 million
families fighting poverty conditions
•
David Blair, CEO of Catalyst Health,
the youngest CEO on the list, who
manages a company of less than
1,000 employees and generates
more than 3.2 billion in revenues.
The research of the “Most Respected
CEOs” has taught us new and important
lessons that challenged the many
common misconceptions about the
ideal CEO’s personal and professional
profiles.
It is worth noting that no list is all inclusive. There
are many CEOs who are highly respected by their
stakeholders but were not included in this year’s
list. The dominance of American CEOs on the list is
not an indication of a better global respectability; it
is the result of this year’s focus on U.S.companies.
Next year, we plan to expand our listing to cover
more CEOs from all over the world, and to give our
readers the chance to learn from their experiences,
successes and insights.
About IIM
International Institute of Management (IIM) is a U.S.
based management best practices research and
education institute. IIM provides CEO and executive
support services, strategic planning retreats and
custom corporate training courses for the Global
Fortune 1000 companies and governments. To learn
more, please visit www.iim-edu.org
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