Harvard Business Reviews (HBR) årlige opgørelse over The Best-Performing CEOs in the World er netop udgivet for 2019. På listen finder man to danskere – tidligere CEO i Vestas Anders Runevad (fratrådt 1. august) og CEO Jens Bjørn Andersen fra DSV. Listen toppes af den taiwanesisk-fødte amerikansk milliardær, CEO og grundlægger af Nvidia, Jensen Huang.
ESG-vurderinger vægter 30 procent i den samlede performance score. ESG har i tidligere år vægtet kun 20 procent, men HBR har øget vægtningen til 30 procent. Den bagvedliggende ESG-data hentes bl.a. fra CSRHUB´ database som Økonomisk Ugebrev også benytter til ESG analyser.
Den øgede ESG-vægtning forklarer HBR således:
”For the past four years we’ve weighted ESG scores to account for 20% of each CEO’s final ranking. This year we tweaked the formula, increasing that share to 30%. The shift reflects the fact that a rapidly growing number of funds and individuals now focus on far more than bottom-line metrics when they make investment decisions. One sign of this changing sensibility: In August 2019, 181 U.S. CEOs who are members of the Business Roundtable signed a statement affirming that the purpose of a corporation is to serve not just shareholders but four other groups of stakeholders: employees, customers, suppliers, and communities.”
Konklusion:
“Corporate boards are under more pressure than ever before. Activist shareholders have become adept at exerting outsize influence and keeping directors on their toes. Index funds, which can’t sell shares when they are unhappy with a company’s leadership or governance, increasingly use their influence to hold boards accountable for CEO performance. This external pressure raises the odds of adversarial dynamics between CEOs and directors, leaving many CEOs feeling unsupported and misunderstood. Boards’ own view of their role has also expanded: Many now seek to add value to the most important decisions facing the company, ranging from strategy to talent and culture.
Our framework gives executives and directors a common language for candid conversations about potential risks and opportunities at each stage. It can help boards view performance in a larger context and avoid overreacting in moments of doubt—or tolerating mediocrity for too long. It can also help them collaborate on succession planning and identify an optimal moment for the leader to step down.”
