The Brand Finance Brand Guardianship Index has ranked Microsoft boss, Satya Nadella, as the top CEO in the world.
Nadella, a first-generation Indian immigrant to the US, “has been credited with overhauling Microsoft’s fortunes by changing its culture towards one of teamwork, innovation, and inclusivity, and instilling a growth mindset throughout the business”.
Three other Indian-origin expat CEOs rank high: Sundar Pichai of Google is at 5, Shantanu Narayan of Adobe at 6, and Puneet Renjen of Deloitte at 14.
N. Chandrasekhar of the Tatas is at 25 in the list and Anand Mahindra of M&M and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance are at 41 and 42, respectively. State Bank of India’s Dinesh Kumar Khara is at 46.The top 10 of the Brand Finance ranking is dominated by CEOs (referred to repeatedly as brand guardians) from the tech and media sectors.
Tim Cook comes second
Tech boasts six of the top ten – Tim Cook is in second place, having overseen Apple become the first to hit a $3 trillion market valuation.
Cook is followed by CEOs of household tech names: Tencent’s Huateng Ma at 4, Pichai at 5, and Netflix’s Reed Hastings at 7.
AMD CEO Lisa Su is a new entrant at 10. This makes her the highest-ranked female.
She newly qualifies for the ranking as AMD has propelled into the Brand Finance Global 500 2022 after a 122 per cent brand value growth over the past year.
Su steered AMD through a global chip shortage during the pandemic and came out the other side boasting record revenues.
Her leadership of a tech company is unfortunately a rarity, with most being run by males.
This is reflected in the ranking, as the rise in the number of tech brands has come hand in hand with a decrease in the number of female CEOs in the top 100 – from eight in 2021 to five this year.
At a country level, the index mirrors the Brand Finance Global 500 2022 ranking, with the US and China leading the way. There are 101 CEOs from the US, which represents 40 per cent of the index, and 47 from China, which represents 19 per cent.
Brand guardians from these two countries head up a number of key sectors: Jianjun Wei of Great Wall in Automobiles at 3, Patricia Griffith of Progressive Insurance at 11, Xiongjun Ding of Moutai Spirits at 12, and Baoan Xin of State Grid Utilities at 13.
Among the Americans, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America is at 16, Ramon Laguarta of Pepsi at 17, Andy Jassy of Amazon is at 23.
