In turbulent times, steadiness and stability can be significant virtues. These qualities are evident in the 100 men and women who’ve achieved a spot in HBR’s 2018 ranking of the world’s top-performing CEOs. They face an array of outside forces—savvy competitors, demanding customers, profit-hungry investors, political and economic headwinds. Nonetheless, their companies have shown a remarkable ability to sustain momentum: Seventy of the 100 leaders in last year’s ranking performed well enough to achieve the distinction again this year—including Pablo Isla, of the Spanish fast-retailing giant Inditex, who repeats as the number-one-ranked executive.
This consistency is the result not just of an unwavering leadership style but of the way HBR measures performance. In a business world that often seems obsessed with today’s stock price and this quarter’s numbers, our ranking takes the long view: It’s based primarily on financial returns over each CEO’s entire tenure—and because these CEOs have been successful, many have enjoyed a long run in the job. (CEOs on the list have been in the position for an average of 16 years, versus an average in 2017 of 7.2 years for S&P 500 CEOs.) To calculate the final rankings, we also factor in each company’s rating on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.
