Investor Resources
Harvard Names Top CEOs
- December 23, 2009
The Harvard Business Review is out with a list of the world’s top public-company CEOs. Apple’s Steve Jobs sits atop the heap, but the global natural resources sector scores well.
No. 3 on this list is Alexey Miller, who has run the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom since 2001. Two rungs lower is Mukesh Ambani of Indian energy and chemicals conglomerate Reliance Industries. Both Miller and Ambani finished ahead of the CEOs of Amazon.com, eBay and Google.
At No. 12 is Bill Greehey, who retired a few years ago from Valero Energy, one of the world’s largest independent oil refiners. Also in the top 25 were the heads of Canadian fertilizer producer Potash Corp. (14), Brazilian steel giant Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (15), Russian miner Norilsk Nickel (22), U.S. oil and gas explorer EOG Resources (23) and British natural gas producer BG Group (25).
The infrastructure sector also fares well – a couple of utilities are in the top 25 (Finland’s Fortum and U.S.-based TXU) along with Japanese heavy equipment maker Komatsu.
So how were the top CEOs picked? Market cap growth during the CEO’s tenure was one metric, along with total shareholder returns adjusted both by country (to account for overall stock market performance) and by industry.
In Gazprom’s case, market cap has grown $101 billion during Miller’s tenure, and both adjusted return categories exceeded 2,000 percent. By comparison, Apple’s market cap growth is more than $150 billion under Jobs, and its adjusted return measures are both over 3,000 percent.
There is one key caveat: only CEOs that took over after 1995 and before 2007 were considered, whether or not they were still at the helm in 2009. HBR says this was to ensure that it had adequate and accurate data to work with, but it eliminated Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and a bunch of others who might have put up some pretty good numbers.
Click here for a slide show of Harvard Business Review’s top 100 CEOs.
By clicking the link, you will be directed to a third-party Web site. U.S. Global Investors does not endorse all information supplied by this website and is not responsible for its content. The securities identified in the article were selected for inclusion by the Harvard Business Review and may or may not be held by portfolios managed by U.S. Global Investors, Inc., whose holdings may change daily.
All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. The following securities mentioned in this article were held by one or more of U.S. Global Investors family of funds as of September 30, 2009: Apple Inc., Gazprom OAO, Amazon.com Inc., Valero Energy Corp.#09-886
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