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able accomplishrnent is likely to go unbeaten for a

long time.

-Ieff Bezos of Amazan com has now climbed

to the #2 spot, up from #7 in our 2o1o list. Under
his leadership, the company delivered industryadjusted shareholder returns of rz,z66% and saw
its value increase by $rrr billion. In recent years the
online retailer has expanded aggressively into new
segments such as cloud-based computing services,
while working to get the most out of the markets it
already occupies. Its revenue

gr

owth shows no signs

of slowing: Sales increased by 4avain

zotr.

The highest-ranked woman on the list is Meg

Whitman, currently the CEO of beleaguered HP,
whose performance as the CEO of eBay from 1998 to
2oo8 earned her the #g spot. Overall, only t.g% of all
the CEOs we studied were women.

There was considerable turnover in the top

1oo-this year about half (+:) of the CEOs are new
to that list since 2o1o. The change happened largely
because in creatrlng the 2013 ranking, we examined
a bigger, more international sample of CEOs. To
make the top 1oo in zoto, CEOs had to rank in the
top 52" of the executives in the study; this year they
had to land in the top 3.2yo. The majority of newcomers to the top roo are from emerging markets,
not surprisingly, but eight U.S. CEOs made the cut
for the first tirne.
One notable new name is Lars Ssrensen, the CEO
of Novo Nordisk, a company that made its name
selling insulin for diabetics. He shot up from #233 in
2O1O to #2O in our current ranking. After Ssrensen
took over the company, in zooo, he spent to years
and $Soo million expanding the sales force to make
it truly global. When all his competitors \^/ere investing in diabetes pills, Ssrensen shut down Novo's pill
research and instead focused the company on its
core competency-insulin and other injected diabetes medications, notably prefilled insulin "pens"
that eliminate the hassle of using a vial and syringe.
His bet that sales would continue to grow in the
wake of a worldwide diabetes epidemic has clearly
paid off

Even industries that have gone through tough

times in recent years have seen some exceptional
results. Airlines, for example, have not been doing well, but Air China, under the leadership of Li
Jiaxiang (#L7 on our list), bucked that trend. During
his tenure, from 2oa4 to 2oo8, the company's total shareholder return was t,azz percentage points
higher than the average for its industry peers, while
January-Fehruary 2org Harvard

Business Review Bs