4th Annual Best Companies for Leaders Ranking Welcomes Fresh Faces

3M Shoots to the Top; Twelve Previously Unranked Companies Make the Top 20

Survey Respondents Name Three All-Time Leaders

NEW YORK, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ — Chief Executive magazine and Hay Group today released their 4th Annual Best Companies for Leaders ranking. This year’s ranking welcomed twelve previously unranked companies, including IBM, Intel, Southwest Airlines and Accenture; while one company, 3M, climbed 15 spots to land at the first place in 2008. The major shift in this year’s ranking was largely due to a greater emphasis given to peer-level assessment.

“Increasingly, companies’ ability to develop internal leadership is becoming their single greatest competitive advantage,” said JP Donlon, Editor-in-Chief of Chief Executive magazine. “Most anyone can get access to capital, and technological advantages are short lived because technology and innovation tends to spread rapidly. But having one’s own superior pipeline is what differentiates leading edge companies from others, and frankly, this pipeline cannot be created by hiring talented leaders. This is why the results of this survey speak volumes about companies’ ability to stay ahead today and beyond.”

Even though more than half of this year’s ranking was composed of newcomers, a few companies, such as Procter & Gamble and GE, ranked #2 and 3, respectively, maintained their historic berth at top spots.

“The common denominator among the top companies is a serious commitment to leadership development,” said Edward M. Kopko, CEO and Publisher of Chief Executive magazine. “They all have formal, in-depth development programs for potentials, they all practice coaching and mentoring and provide continued feedback and assessment to potentials. Moreover, in most cases, the CEO is directly involved, including frequently teaching to selected groups.”

The survey results underscored that best-in-class companies with a long-term focus toward developing leaders work hard — even during an economic downturn — to create clarity, encourage development, drive accountability and recognize successful leaders. Sixty-five percent of the companies on the list hold senior managers accountable for commitment to these initiatives versus 36 percent for all others; 63 percent of the companies on the list create a sense of purpose for employees by communicating values versus 43 percent for all other companies.

This year’s ranking also asked participants to name the best business leaders of this generation. Jack Welch, Bill Gates and Richard Branson came on top of a list of 86 leaders floated to the respondents.

About The Hay Group/Chief Executive Best Companies for Leaders Survey

The Annual Best Companies for Leaders Survey was sent to a total of 2,147 companies, of which 1,140 cooperated with the survey. Companies that participated were headquartered in 89 countries. Thirty-nine percent came from North America, 23 percent from Europe (including Eastern Europe), 11 percent from East Asia, 11 percent from Middle East/Africa and the remainder from other regions. Fifty-two percent had annual revenues under $500 million, while 12 percent had revenues over $10 billion. To read the full article on Chief Executive Web site, go to: www.chiefexecutive.net. To view Hay Group’s press release on the survey, go to: www.haygroup.com/Chief_Executive.

About Chief Executive Magazine

Chief Executive is a controlled circulation magazine that has been published since 1977. It reaches 42,000 chief executive officers and their peers, reaches a total readership of 220,000. Chief Executive Group facilitates “Chief Executive of the Year,” a prestigious honor bestowed upon an outstanding corporate leader, nominated and selected by a group of his or her peers. Anne Mulcahy, Bob Ulrich, A. G. Lafley, George David, Fred Smith, Bill Gates, John Chambers, Michael Dell and Sandy Weill are just some of the leaders who have been honored during the award’s 23-year history. Chief Executive also organizes roundtable meetings and conferences to foster opportunities for top corporate officers to discuss key subjects and share their experiences within a community of peers. Visit www.chiefexecutive.net for more information.

    2008 Top 20 Best Companies for Leaders
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      1  3M Company (15)
      2  Procter & Gamble (2)
      3  General Electric (1)
      4  Coca-Cola (5)
      5  HSBC Holdings (14)
      6  ABB
      7  Southwest Airlines
      8  IBM
      9  Hewlett-Packard (10)
     10  PepsiCo (7)
     11  Nokia
     12  Accenture Ltd.
     13  FedEx
     14  Infosys Technologies Ltd.
     15  McDonald's Corporation (18)
     16  Caterpillar
     17  American Express
     18  Cisco Systems
     19  Oracle
     20  Intel Corporation

SOURCE Chief Executive Magazine