The 200 top-performing CEOs in the world

This is the first global ranking of CEOs based on company performance during their time in office. While this is the only place to access the top 200 list, the top 50 list will be published in the Harvard Business Review (Jan-Feb 2010) and is also available on the HBR's website.

Created by three INSEAD professors, the ranking is based on a global data set of some 2,000 CEOs of 48 nationalities and from companies in 33 countries. CEOs from companies in the S&P Global 1200 and S&P BRIC 40 lists since 1997 were measured on three metrics during their tenure: industry-adjusted total shareholder return (TSR); country-adjusted TSR; and change in market capitalisation. They were then ranked on each metric to form a combined rank.

The ranking reveals several surprises. One is that high-performance is fairly spread out across both countries and industries. No particular context has a monopoly on exceptional performance. The results drive home how important it is to use objective, long-term measures to assess CEOs and to inform succession planning.