Amazon: Jeffrey Bezos, Best-Performing CEO of the Year, according to Harvard Business Review 

By

Anne-Sophie Savenier

Published

Oct 23, 2014

For the fourth consecutive year, Harvard Business Review (HBR), the prestigious American review, published its rankings of the hundred Best-Performing CEOs in the world.

This year, Jeffrey Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is at the top of the list, after occupying 2nd place in 2013.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, and the Harvard Business Review’s highest-performing CEO of 2014 | Source: Amazon – © Amazon

The American review highlights the clear vision of the group’s CEO who, since the beginning, has done everything to make the company the most customer-driven, but at same time benefitting from real recognition all while limiting advertising to a minimum.

In this ranking can also be found some twenty or so big employers from the world of textiles, retail and beauty. However, besides Jeffrey Bezos, only two of them made it into the top 20.

Tadashi Yanai, for Fast Retailing (Comptoir des Cotonniers), thus made it to 11th place and Pablo Isla Alvarez de Tejera, for Inditex (Zara, …), made it to 14th place.

Michaeal Balmuth, CEO of Ross Stores, an American fashion brand, slid into the 25th position.

The leaders of emblematic brands Adidas and Nike respectively rank 73rd and 76th.

To establish this ranking, HBR looked at the increase in total shareholder return and market capitalization.

However, according to the review, the CEO’s performance is not only a question of their company’s financial results. The long-term value created by a leader is more telling.

HBR thus measures the performance of CEOs who have been in their position for at least two years, with the median term for all the CEOs studied being seven years.