Who would stand alongside Steve Jobs?
The recent departure of Steve Jobs as the CEO of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL.US) marks the end of an incredibly successful chapter in the story of the consumer electronics giant. Many would say that the amazing run that Jobs has had marks him out as one of the greatest chief executives of all time.
This got me thinking -- who else deserves to stand in the CEO Hall of Fame alongside Steve Jobs? Well, here are my picks.
Jack Welch
Jack Welch was Chairman and Chief Executive of General Electric (NYSE: GE.US) between 1981 and 2001. He originally joined GE as a chemical engineer in 1961. After 20 years he had risen to become GE's youngest ever Chairman and CEO.
Soon after his accession he gave a speech on 'Growing fast in a slow-growth economy', describing the then radical idea of shareholder value. It set the tone for his tenure at the top of GE.
Welch was a ruthless but effective leader, and he was soon dubbed 'Neutron Jack'. Each year he would fire the bottom 10% of his managers. In the 80s he cut the payroll drastically, leading to a massive increase in the company's market capitalisation. He stopped basic research, and sold or closed parts of the business that were underperforming.
The proof that his brutal methods worked was the company's ballooning market capitalisation. Welch had grown the company's worth from £9 billion to £260 billion, making it the world's most valuable company.
Terry Leahy
Brought up in a pre-fab maisonette on a council estate in Liverpool, Sir Terry Leahy joined Tesco (LSE: TSCO) straight after graduating from UMIST in 1979. In 1997, when he was just 40, he became chief executive.
During his 14-year stewardship he has taken Tesco from being level with Sainsbury (LSE: SBRY) in terms of UK market share, to a company which now has nearly double the market share of either Sainsbury or Asda. Tesco's 2011 profits of £3.5 billion are a whopping 5 times that of Sainsbury.
And, not content with UK domination, Leahy masterminded Tesco's growth in overseas markets. The fact that Warren Buffett has been impressed enough to invest heavily in the grocer shows that Leahy has transformed Tesco into one of the world's most formidable supermarket chains.
Carlos Ghosn
Of Brazilian-Lebanese descent, Carlos Ghosn is Chairman and CEO of both Nissan and Renault. He orchestrated an aggressive downsizing campaign and spearheaded the turnaround of Nissan from near bankruptcy in the late 1990s. For this he earned the name 'le cost killer'.
He is also famous for his candour, and his demanding and sometimes confrontational style.
But alongside his 'tough man' demeanour, he has impressive vision. He saw many years ago the importance of emerging markets to the future of the car industry. He has invested heavily in Brazil, Russia, Korea and India, and in China Nissan is now the no. 1 Japanese carmaker.
He has also thrown his weight behind the coming electric car revolution, investing £3 billion in the Nissan Leaf. Time will tell if his big bet on electric cars is proved right.
Katherine Graham
After profiling three hard-nosed 'tough men', I thought I'd balance my selection with two CEOs who exhibited the softer side of leadership.
Let's start with Katherine Graham, often known simply as 'Kay'. Daughter of wealthy investor and publisher Eugene Mayer, Kay was bullied on a regular basis by her boorish husband Phil, to whom Eugene had passed the reins of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO.US). Phil was a philanderer and moody to the point of being a manic depressive, and he eventually had a breakdown, shooting himself in the bathroom of their house in 1963.
His suicide left Kay with the paper, but she was shy and inexperienced in the business world and dreaded being in charge. At the time, the Washington Post was an undistinguished regional paper. Graham aimed for people to speak of it in the same breath as the New York Times.
She made some crucial decisions which were to transform the fortunes of the paper. She decided to go ahead and publish the Pentagon Papers that revealed government deceptions about the Vietnam War, risking the wrath of the Nixon administration.
That was followed by Watergate, which the Post was largely alone in pursuing at the time. By standing up to Nixon the Post made history, but Graham was characteristically modest about its achievements, saying "I never felt there was much choice". Katherine Graham stands out as one of the most courageous CEOs of all time.
George Merck
The Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK.US) boss didn't worry about Wall Street, yet grew profits 50-fold.
He developed a drug to battle parasites which caused blindness in tribal people in remote tropical locations. Today 30 million people a year receive Mectizan, largely free of charge, and the sight of thousands of people has been saved.
But Merck was not some fuzzy-headed do-gooder; he realised that the purpose of a corporation was to do something useful, and to do it very well. "And if we remembered that, the profits have never failed to appear," he explained. "The better we remembered, the larger they have been."
Perhaps, for once, nice guys finish first.
So this is my view of some of the greatest CEOs in the world. But who are your picks? Please share your thoughts in the box below.
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