Mukesh Ambani is ranked second in a list of top CEOs dominated by Indian-origin chief executives. The highest ranking woman CEO is Leena Nair, who heads luxury fashion brand, Chanel. The Top 100 Brand Guardians 2023 list of Brand Finance places Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Punit Renjen, Shantanu Narayen, N Chandrasekaran and Piyush Gupta in the top 10.
The report said Ambani continues to oversee Reliance's transition into green energy and the diversification of its telecoms and retail branches. It said that this commitment to positive change has positively raised his perception as Chairman and MD of the group, and is reflected in the inspires positive change metric.
The list was topped by Jensen Huang, who heads the tech company Nvidia, Mukesh Ambani, Microsoft s Satya Nadella, Adobe s Sundar Pichai, Deloitte s Punit Renjen, Estee Lauder s Fabrizio Freda, Tata Sons N Chandrasekaran, DBS Piyush Gupta and Tencent s Huateng Ma.
Half of the top 10 CEOs or equivalents come from tech and media sectors, which is a dip from 9 out of 10 in 2022. The most common backgrounds for the ones in the ranking are engineering and finance.
Leena Nair, the highest-ranking woman CEO, has been placed in 11th place by Brand Finance. She is one of the only seven women CEOs to be included in the list of 100. The report stated that they expect to see an increase in the number of women CEOs in the coming years.
Reed Hastings, who stepped down on Thursday night, has been placed at the 17th spot, according to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Anand Mahindra is ranked 23rd while Airtel's Sunil Mittal is on 26th place. The CEO of the State Bank of India, Dinesh Kumar Khara, was ranked 48th.
Annie Brown, General Manager UK Consulting at Brand Finance said this year has seen a shift in the top drivers of brand guardian reputation due to the uncertain global financial market, with Commercial Leadership and Inspiring Positive Change now the two most important drivers of reputation. This shows the need for brand guardians to focus on commercial outcomes in difficult operating conditions. The report said that highly-paid brand guardians are expected to manage the needs and expectations of all stakeholders and are expected to be held accountable for their commercial and organisational leadership.
The US has the highest number of CEOs in the top 100, followed by China. The Indian chief executives performed well, according to the report.