Gates Tops the Bill in CEO Survey
December 15 2005
Microsoft Chair Bill Gates is the world's most admired business leader, according to a study of 600 global business influentials conducted by Burson-Marsteller together with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). He is closely followed by rival Steve Jobs of Apple, while Virgin's Richard Branson takes fifth place, the highest non-US leader.
The 2005 CEO Capital study asked more than 600 'influentials' (CEOs, senior executives, financial analysts, business media, and government officials) in 65 countries which leader they most admire. The top 15 is as follows:
- Bill Gates, Microsoft, US
- Steve Jobs, Apple, US
- Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, US
- Michael Dell, Dell, US
- Richard Branson, Virgin, UK
- John Browne, BP, UK
- Carlos Ghosh, Nissan Motor & Renault, Japan/France
- N R Narayana Murthy, Infosys Technologies, India
- Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric, US
- Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, Australia
- John Bond, HSBC Holdings, UK
- John Chambers, Cisco Systems, US
- Jorma Olila, Nokia, Finland
- Terry Leahy, Tesco, UK
- Lakshmi Mittal, Mittal Steel, Netherlands.
The top four leaders are all from American companies, but more than half represent other regions: the UK sees four winners, while Finland, Netherlands, Japan, France, India and Australia each have one. Other notable facts about the list are that eight of the top 15 are company founders, the leaders have an average tenure of 21 years, and that no women are included.
Dr Leslie Gaines-Ross, Burson-Marsteller's Chief Knowledge & Research Officer, says: 'The selection of Bill Gates not only recognizes his ongoing stewardship at the company he founded, but also acknowledges the powerful effect that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has had on his reputation.'
He adds: 'Leaders and their companies can no longer safely ignore the value placed on corporate responsibility and commitment by 21st century citizens.'
The study was conducted online between May and July 2005. It was completed by 685 business influentials. 26% of respondents came from North America, 32% from Europe, 32% from Asia-Pacific and 10% from Latin America. Participants were drawn from a cross-section of 19 industries.
More information about the study is online at
www.ceogo.com . Burson-Marsteller is online at
www.bm.com .
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
