LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD) CEO Jeff Weiner received the top grade in Glassdoor’s new “Highest Rated CEOs 2014.” The rating is based on employee answers to the question, “Do you approve of the way your CEO is leading your company?” LinkedIn has been one of the hottest public corporations traded on any U.S. exchange, both in terms of earnings and a stock price that has risen more than 100% during the past two years. Interestingly, company founders took many spots on the list.
At the top of the list are chief executives from both new and old economy companies. Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), widely lauded for turning around the company, ranked second. Ford was the only one of the Big Three automakers that did not file for Chapter 11 during the recession, and as such did not take any federal bailout money.
Third on the list is Richard W. Edelman, who runs the PR firm founder by his father.
Fourth on the list is Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), a major provider of technology for smartphones. He is now the company’s executive chairman, having given up the CEO role to one of the firm’s veterans, Steve Mollenkopf. Jacobs’ father founded the firm.
Fifth on the list is Craig Jelinek of brick-and-mortar retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST), often cited as one of America’s best run retailers. He is followed by Brad Smith of Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) and Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS).
The final three of the top 10 are Howard D. Schultz of Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), another brick-and-mortar company; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), which is now one of the largest public corporations based on market cap, despite its modest revenue; and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) CEO Larry Page. Page and Zuckerberg are also founders.
The extent to which old economy companies have a major presence on the list is because included among the top 50 are Edward C. “Ned” Johnson III of Fidelity, another family controlled firm; Mickey Drexler of brick-and-mortar retailer J. Crew; Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX); Bob Iger of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS); and Blake W. Nordstrom, part of the founding family of brick-and-mortar retailer Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN).
Among new economy CEOs, Tim Cook of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) made the list, as did Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos and Marissa Mayer of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).
Retail CEOs dominated much of the list, a surprise because these companies often are ranked low in customer service polls. Their employees must believe otherwise. Hubert Joly of troubled electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is on the list, as is Frank Blake of Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), Glenn K. Murphy of Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) and Ed Crenshaw of Publix.
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