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In its November issue, the Harvard Business Review put out a list of the world’s best performing CEOs. The leaders of six resource companies made the list, with one CEO even making the top 10.
For its November issue, The Harvard Business Review went to great lengths to find out just that. To create its 2014 list, the Review went beyond simply ranking yearly performance, endeavoring to find out “which global CEOs actually delivered solid results over the long run.”
The ranking process
Ranking the world’s top CEOs might seem like a difficult — if not impossible — task, but the Review used a fairly rigorous methodology, rating CEOs based on company returns and changes in market capitalization achieved during their tenure. Those figures were adjusted according to the economic performance of the countries housing the CEOs’ businesses, as well as according to overall industry performance. Factors such as whether the CEO had an MBA or an engineering degree were also worked in.
To narrow the playing field, the Review looked at companies that were part of the S&P Global 1200 at the end of 2013, excluding CEOs who entered their position before 1995 or after April 30, 2012. Understandably, the ranking also left out executives who have been convicted or arrested.
After crunching the numbers, the publication came up with 100 CEOs. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos was number one, but the list also includes Hugh Grant of Monsanto (NYSE:MON) (7), Howard Schultz of Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) (54) and Robert Iger of Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) (60).
Best-performing resource CEOs
Notably, several CEOs from the resources and commodities sector made the cut as well. First was William Doyle, CEO of PotashCorp (TSX:POT,NYSE:POT), who came in fairly high on the list at number 10.
Doyle beat out the likes of Reed Hastings of Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) to come in at that position. According to the Review, PotashCorp has seen a 1,327-percent country-adjusted shareholder return, or a 1,163-percent industry-adjusted return, and a $37-billion increase in market capitalization since Doyle took charge in 1999. And despite a volatile potash market in 2014, PotashCorp’s share price is still up about 13 percent year-to-date.
Also ranking high on the list was Mexico’s Oscar Gonzalez Rocha, CEO of Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO). Since Rocha began as CEO in 2004, the company has added $40 billion to its market cap, and shareholders have seen a country-adjusted return of 576 percent, or an industry-adjusted return of 579 percent. Shares of Southern Copper have gained just under 5 percent year-to-date.
All in all, six resource CEOs made the top 100. They are as follows:
- 10 William Doyle, PotashCorp
- 16 Oscar Gonzalez Rocha, Southern Copper
- 39 Charles Davidson, Noble Energy (NYSE:NBL)
- 42 Dan Dinges, Cabot Oil & Gas (NYSE:COG)
- 49 Philip Pascall, First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FM,LSE:FQM)
- 95 Jean-Paul Luksic, Antofagasta (LSE:ANTO)
What it takes
Of course, the Harvard Business Review acknowledges that “being a good CEO is about far more than just investment performance,” and provided another ranking in terms of reputation (Monsanto dropped to 100 there). Still, it’s refreshing to see that despite this year’s tough market, there are still a number of resource CEOs who have delivered strong returns year after year.
Click here to view the full list on the Harvard Business Review website.
Securities Disclosure: I, Teresa Matich, hold no direct investment in any of the companies mentioned in this article.