The world's best CEOs are, however, at their posts for more than 17 years and achieved total revenues of shares amounting to 2,091%, i.e. 20.2% per year. That is according to this year's ranking of the Top 100 CEOs compiled by the Harvard Business Review magazine from 2010.
HBR has prepared these rankings since 2010 in order to to evaluate CEOs based on the objectively measurable results they achieve in the course of their functions, not public opinion.
The ranking evaluates CEOs of the companies in the S & P Global 1200 which covers approximately 70% of the market value of global equities and represents companies from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. After excluding CEOs who were dismissed or have not yet been in their positions for more than two years, this year's rankings evaluated a total of 895 CEOs from 886 companies.
Who the best CEOs are
Lars Rebien Sørensen, CEO of the global pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk based in Denmark, is the winner for the second time in a row. Martin Sorrell, CEO of the world's largest marketing agency WPP based in the UK, ranked the second. The final member of the top three is Pablo Isla, CEO of the multinational clothing company Inditex based in Spain. Their paths to the position of the three best performing CEOs in the world were quite different.
Lars Rebien Sørensen studied forestry. He started working for Novo Nordisk more than 30 years ago and became the CEO in 2000 after working in many internal roles.
Martin Sorrell is an MBA graduate who founded WPP after ten years of experience in marketing. He became famous thanks to series of successful acquisitions of other advertising agencies. He has been the company's CEO since 1986.
Pablo Isla graduated with a law degree. Before entering the position of the CEO of Inditex in 2005, he worked in the banking industry and for the Spanish Treasury.
This year's statistics
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Only 30 CEOs ranked in the top 100 for three consecutive years.
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16 directors of the 2016 Top 100 CEOs lead companies outside of their home countries.
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84 CEOs entered their companies from the outside.
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Only 24 CEOs are MBA graduates and the same number of CEOs hold an engineering degree.
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On average, they became CEOs at the age of 44 and have worked in this post for 17 years.
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There are two women in the top 100.
For more information on the rating methodology, the whole rankings and specific dates, please visit https://hbr.org/2016/11/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-world.
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