CEOs of the world’s most significant companies are being judged by the
general public on the basis of ethics — doing what’s right — and much
less on share price value, according to results from Reputation
Institute’s 2019 CEO RepTrak® study.
“It’s a brave new world for CEOs,” said Kylie Wright-Ford, CEO at
Reputation Institute, a technology-enabled data-driven insights company
and provider of reputation measurement and management services. “Acting
responsibly, behaving ethically and caring about social issues are the
most important drivers of CEO reputation for the second consecutive
year. To understand the significance of this, look no further than this
year’s reputation decline for the CEOs at Google, and Facebook in
particular.”
Following a turbulent 2018 that raised questions about Google’s good
intentions and data privacy, company CEO Sundar Pichai — last year’s #1
CEO — dropped out of the elite group of the ranked CEOs. Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg’s reputation hit a new low due to his repeated, and
perceived inability to deliver on ethically responsible behavior.
Even Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos fell in the reputation rankings, due in
part to the perception that Bezos doesn’t especially care about
employees or social issues.
“In the court of public opinion, CEOs are readily punished for moral
indiscretions and falling short on less than wholly ethical, honest, and
transparent behavior. By contrast, the top 10 CEOs understand that
behaving responsibly is critical to how they lead and conduct business,”
Wright-Ford said.
The CEOs RepTrak 10
CEO RepTrak 2019 measured the reputation of more than 140 global CEOs
and canvassed more than 230,000 individual ratings from among the
informed public (only surveying those people who are somewhat or very
familiar with the company and the CEO). The study was conducted in
January and February.
The top 10 global CEOs recognized in Reputation Institute’s 2019 CEO
RepTrak study (in alphabetical order) are:
- Ben van Beurden, Shell (OTCMKTS: RYDAF)
- Niels B. Christiansen, LEGO Group
- Michael Dell, Dell
- Emmanuel Faber, Danone S.A. (OTCMKTS: DANOY)
- Fabrizio Freda, The Estée Lauder Companies (NYSE: EL)
- Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo Co., Ltd. (OTCMKTS: NTDOY)
- Ralph Hamers, ING Group (NYSE: ING)
- David Holl, Mary Kay, Inc.
- Christopher J. Nassetta, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT)
- Carsten Spohr, Deutsche Lufthansa AG (OTCMARKETS: DLAKF)
Only The Estée Lauder Companies, ING Group and Nintendo have their CEOs
among the top 10 for two consecutive years. Of the four women CEOs who
qualified for the study, only one — Emma Walmsley of GlaxoSmithKline
plc, made it into the top 20. 50% of the CEOs in the top 10 lead
European companies, 40% lead US companies and 10% Japanese companies.
“At The Estée Lauder Companies, we believe that our reputation and
business goals are one in the same. As we continue to emphasize
transparency, responsiveness, clarity and ethics, our company’s values
and subsequent reputation will serve to further drive our business,”
said Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO, The Estée Lauder Companies.
Companies interested in learning more about 2019 CEO Trak and accessing
2019 reputation scores should visit https://www.reputationinstitute.com/CEO-reptrak
and https://reputationinstitute.com/contact.
About Reputation Institute
Reputation Institute helps
leaders at the world’s largest companies build credibility with the
people that matter most to them by delivering data-driven insights about
how they are truly perceived. We do this with RepTrak®, an unrivaled
technology that provides actionable insights across industry,
competitor, and company analysis. Past and present clients have included
Whirlpool, Barnes & Noble,The Estée Lauder Companies, JP Morgan Chase &
Co., LEGO, P&G, Cisco, and Telefonica, among many others. For more
information, please visit www.reputationinstitute.com.
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