World's Best CEOs

Reed Hastings announced Netflix’s (NFLX) move to the cloud back in 2007, months before the first iPhone was released. Bob Iger at Walt Disney (DIS) held out until recently, but is now going all-in on streaming services for his sports network ESPN+ and, soon, Disney movies and shows. The most striking of these cloud victims-turned-victors is Hubert Joly of Best Buy (BBY), who figured out how to make a big-box electronics chain newly relevant in the age of Amazon. For that reason, he appears on our cover.

“The issue is not Amazon,” says Joly. “The issue is, customers have no tolerance for mediocrity because there are so many great experiences they can choose from. Our customers have gone from not liking us to liking us. We want them to love us.”

As for smart purchases, those are expected of highly paid executives. Even so, several chiefs on our list have had humdingers. Disney wouldn’t be as dominant in films, parks, merchandise, and more without Iger having snapped up Pixar in 2006, Marvel in 2009, and Star Wars owner Lucasfilm in 2012. The only thing attracting social-media ad dollars like Facebook (FB) is Instagram, which Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg took over in 2012.

Google, now Alphabet, paid $1.7 billion for YouTube back in 2006. Investment Bank UBS predicts that YouTube will be good for $43 billion in revenue by 2022, up from $17 billion last year. Robert Sands at

Constellation Brands (STZ) bought U.S. distribution rights to Corona five years ago, and turned it into one of the biggest success stories in consumer staples. Marriott International’s (MAR) acquisition of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide two years ago, led by CEO Arne Sorenson, gave it increased exposure to booming China travel, and enough scale to boost the value of its rewards programs. “Arne’s moves have improved the economics of ownership,” says Steve Witkoff, a developer building a 4,000-room hotel with Marriott in Las Vegas.

To create our list, we began by screening the S&P 500 index and the 250 largest non-U.S. companies for factors including revenue and earnings growth and share-price performance over the past five years. A team of editors and writers then selected the honorees, based on the extent to which each chief’s actions led to his or her company’s success. As usual, about a third of our previous year’s picks were moved off the list, making room for newcomers.

We followed our rules strictly—except in cases where we didn’t. Arista isn’t in the S&P 500, but it is suddenly valued at close to $19 billion, up from less than $5 billion two years ago, putting it near the middle of S&P 500 members by size. PSA Groupe (UG.France) head Carlos Tavares made his debut on our list last year, when our company size requirement was lower, but the chief of the European company that makes Peugeot cars did so well over the past year that we kept him.

Don’t be thrown by Aditya Puri’s title of managing director at HDFC Bank (HDFCB.India); U.S. banks often have hundreds of managing directors, but in India, that’s what chief executives are called. For the first time this year, we divided the CEOs into three groups: visionary founders, growth leaders, and turnaround experts.

Among our newcomers, Ullal makes the list because networking insurgent Arista is giving incumbent Cisco Systems (CSCO) fits by emphasizing the power of software over proprietary hardware. Whitehurst has expanded Red Hat’s success with Linux into a niche market, turning open-source software into polished, commercial versions. James Gorman has focused Morgan Stanley (MS) on wealth management and steady fees, and away from trading, helping the firm overtake rival Goldman Sachs in market value.

Fabrizio Freda at Estée Lauder (EL) has pushed a rising portion of his beauty products through high-margin channels, like airport stores and e-commerce sites, growing earnings quickly and attracting a rising price/earnings ratio for the shares. Investors looking for fast growth at a reasonable price should turn their eyes seaward; Richard Fain at Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL) has delivered double-digit earnings growth and triple the gain of the S&P 500 over the past five years, yet his shares go for a modest 12 times earnings. Andrew Wilson has doubled profit margins for videogame publisher Electronic Arts (EA) in five years by going digital. Best Buy’s Joly, Constellation’s Sands, and Marriott’s Sorenson complete our list of additions.

Some CEOs stepped down from their posts—and our list—including David Cote at Honeywell International (HON) and Howard Schultz at Starbucks (SBUX), who is staying on as chairman while working to develop high-end coffee shops. WPP (WPP) Chief Executive Martin Sorrell resigned abruptly after 33 years amid misconduct allegations. A labor issue at Ryanair Holdings (RYAAY) led to mass flight cancellations last year, and profits and the share price have dipped, leading to chief Michael O’Leary’s departure from our list.

Brian Roberts at Comcast (CMCSA), which is competing with Disney to buy most of 21st Century Fox(FOXA), is an accomplished leader with a top-performing cable service. But cable is under threat from cord-cutting and streaming, and Comcast lags behind rivals in streaming services, helping to explain its stock’s underperformance relative to Disney’s over the past year.

Larry Young at Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS) is going out on a high note, selling the company to Keurig Green Mountain at a hefty premium. Carlos Brito at Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) is struggling to find an answer to Budweiser’s weak U.S. volumes. Over the past year, his shares have fallen by about 20%, roughly as much as Constellation’s have risen.

Tim Cook at Apple (AAPL) has done an impressive job of growing service revenue and expanding the iPhone universe. He came off our list in 2016 after the shares tumbled, although they have nearly doubled since. But Apple’s earnings per share weren’t much higher in the past year than two years before, a reflection in part of the timing of phone upgrades. Barron’s readers are high on Cook’s performance, citing his honesty and faithfulness to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ principles in a recent reader survey.

You’ll find more on our top CEOs, including mainstays such as Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway(BRK.A) and Fred Smith of FedEx (FDX), by reading on. 

World’s Best CEOs: Visionary Founders

Bernard Arnault, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton 
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com 
Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway 
Larry Fink, BlackRock 
Reed Hastings, Netflix 
Ma Huateng, Tencent Holdings 
Jensen Huang, Nvidia 
Larry Page, Alphabet 
Fred Smith, FedEx 
Jeffrey Sprecher, Intercontinental Exchange 
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook 

World’s Best CEOs: Growth Leaders

Gary Dickerson, Applied Materials 
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase 
Richard Fain, Royal Caribbean Cruises 
Fabrizio Freda, Estée Lauder 
James Gorman, Morgan Stanley 
Arne Sorenson, Marriott International 
Robert Iger, Walt Disney 
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe Systems 
Aditya Puri, HDFC Bank 
Robert Sands, Constellation Brands 
Miles White, Abbott Laboratories 
James Whitehurst, Red Hat 
Jayshree Ullal, Arista Networks 
Andrew Wilson, Electronic Arts 

World’s Best CEOs: Turnaround Experts

Mary Barra, General Motors 
Satya Nadella, Microsoft 
Hubert Joly, Best Buy 
Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics 
Carlos Tavares, PSA Groupe