Best of the Best: Top CEOs

To some folks, he’s an innovator, a genius who has fundamentally transformed the retail equation. To others, he’s a bully. And now Jeff Bezos has a new label: the world’s best-performing CEO.



The designation comes way of the Harvard Business Review’s 2014 ranking of the 100 best-performing CEOs. The list offers the only ranking of global CEOs’ performances over their entire tenure. It’s designed to recognize chief executives who are building value and delivering results year after year — as opposed to just in the short term.



To create the list, HBR looked at CEOs of the S&P Global 1200 who assumed their role between 1995 and April 30, 2012, for a total of 832 current CEOs in 30 countries around the world.



The performance of each executive was examined over his or her entire stint according to three metrics: industry-adjusted shareholder returns, country-adjusted shareholder returns, and increase in market capitalization over the CEO’s tenure.



The metrics explain why Bezos — even though his company has consistently lagged on profit growth — took the top spot, and by a wide margin. During his tenure, Amazon delivered industry-adjusted shareholder returns of an astounding 15,189% (that’s not a typo), and saw its value increase by $140 billion.



Joining Bezos in the elite group were a diverse mix of leaders — mostly male, with only two women making the list — from industries across the board. Looking beyond Bezos, retailers, in the most traditional sense of the word, accounted for 11 of the top 100 spots:

• 
  Tadashi Yanai, Fast Retailing (#11);


• 
  Pablo Isla Álvarez de Tejera, Inditex (#14);


• 
  Michael Balmuth, Ross Stores (#25);


• 
  Simon Wolfson, Next (#43););


• 
  Carol Meyrowitz, TJX Cos. ( #51);


• 
  Howard Schultz, Starbucks (tie, #54);


• 
  Blake Nordstrom, Nordstrom (tie #54);


• 
  William Rhodes III, AutoZone (#62),


• 
  Terry Lundgren; Macy’s (#66);


• 
  Gregory Henslee, O’Reilly Automotive (#80); and


• 
  Michael Kowalski, Tiffany & Company (#92).

The ranking had some other interesting findings. The median age of the top CEOs is 59. And American CEOs earn more. According to compensation analysis firm Equilar, the median pay for U.S. CEOs on the list is $12.1 million, compared with $6.4 million for non-U.S. CEOs for whom HBR obtained data.



The top 100 CEOs out-earn their peers in every category, including salary, bonus, equity, awards and options. On average, the U.S. CEOs on the list earn 20% more than S&P 500 CEOs.



And for anyone wondering, the highest paid CEO on the list is Walt Disney’s Robert Iger (#60), with a total package of a cool $34.3 million.



Marianne Wilson



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