The Harvard Business Review has named NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang the world’s top performing CEO.
The prestigious management publication put Huang at the top of its list, unveiled Monday, as part of its annual ranking of the world’s 100 best-performing chief executives.
Other CEOs highlighted by the magazine include Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, ranked No. 2, and Francois-Henri Pinault of Kering, owner of luxury brands such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, who ranked third.
The Harvard Business Review’s editorial team cited NVIDIA’s strong financial performance as it evolved from providing graphics chips for gaming into an AI powerhouse leading advances in computing, autonomous vehicles and robotics.
Helping put Huang over the top was NVIDIA’s strong performance in environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance, as tracked by CSRHub and Sustainalytics.
The list, which appears in Harvard Business Review’s November-December issue, differs from other rankings by measuring performance for the entire length of a chief executive’s tenure.
“The leaders on our 2019 list have prospered by outperforming their peers over the long term — both financially and on increasingly important environmental, social and governance measures,” Harvard Business Review Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius said in a statement.
The publication ranked Huang No. 2 last year and No. 3 the year before.