Sunday 26 June 2011

The Best-Performing CEOs in the World

A lot of people have blamed short-term thinking for causing our current economic troubles, which has set off a debate about what time window we should use to assess a CEO’s performance. Today boards of directors, senior managers, and investors intensely want to know how CEOs handle the ups and downs of running businesses over an extended period. Many executive compensation plans define the “long term” as a three-year horizon, but the real test of a CEO’s leadership has to be how the company does over his or her full tenure.

This article contains the first ranking that shows which CEOs of large public companies performed best over their entire time in office—or, for those still in the job, up until September 30, 2009. To compile our results, we collected data on close to 2,000 CEOs worldwide.

It may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list. However, our ranking does contain a few surprises. You’ll see some relatively unknown faces at the top. The inverse is also true: Some obvious candidates in terms of reputation don’t make the top 50, which we’re printing in this issue—or even the top 100 or top 200. (To view the top 100 and access a list of the top 200, go to hbr.org/top-ceos.) In fact, our list overlaps very little with lists of the most-admired or highest-paid CEOs

CEO of Microsoft

Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000.As of 2011, his personal wealth is estimated at US$14.5 billion, ranking number 46 on the Forbes list of billionaires.

salary of steve jobs (Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc)

Even though Jobs only earns $1 a year,his 5.426 million shares of Apple, and his 138 million shares of Disney (which he had received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar),Forbes has estimated his net wealth at $5.1 billion in 2009, making him the 43rd wealthiest American.After Bloomberg had accidentally published Jobs' obituary in 2008, Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek magazine noted that "Jobs isn’t widely known for his association with philanthropic causes", compared to Bill Gates' efforts.After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs.