Billionaire Mukesh Ambani ranked No.1 among Indians and second globally on the Brand Guardianship Index 2023, overtaking the likes of Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Google’s Sundar Pichai.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang topped the list globally, with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella occupying third place.
The Brand Guardianship Index by Brand Finance, a leading global independent brand consultancy, is a global recognition of CEOs, who are building business value in a sustainable manner, by balancing the needs of all stakeholders — employees, investors, and the wider society.
“We have constructed a balanced scorecard of measures that capture the ability of a CEO to act as the guardian of their company’s brand and a steward of long-term shareholder value,” Brand Finance said in the 2023 report, PTI reported.
The Brand Guardianship Index includes ‘equity’ factors, which reflect current perceptions, ‘performance’ factors which reflect the tangible results of these perceptions, and ‘Investment’ factors which support future performance.
“Mukesh Ambani has gained increased mainstream awareness globally since news broke in 2022 of his potential interest in buying Arsenal Football Club, a valuable English football club that plays in the top-flight English Premier League,” the report said.
Ambani, the face of the Reliance brand
Ambani has demonstrated a long-term commitment to positive change, through the investment of legacy revenue from Reliance’s petrochemicals business into building a more diverse and sustainable business portfolio, the report said.
This has raised his perception as chairman and MD of the group and is reflected by Ambani’s top performance on the ‘Inspires positive change’ metric within the Brand Guardianship Index, it said.
As the face of the Reliance brand, Ambani continues to oversee Reliance’s transition into green energy, and the diversification of its telecoms and retail branches, including the launch of its new FMCG brand, Independence.
The majority of the top 10 on the index are chief executives from India or Indian origin.
Shantanu Narayen of Adobe and Pichai are ranked fourth and fifth, while Deloitte’s Punit Rejen is at No.6 and Tata group chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran at the eighth spot.
Piyush Gupta of DBS is at No.9 ahead of Huateng Ma of Tencent.
The Brand Guardianship Index and the Brand Guardianship Ranking are based on a survey of 1,000 market analysts and journalists — two stakeholder groups who have informed and influential views on chief executives’ reputations. Only 50 of the respondents of the survey carried out in November/December 2022 reside in India.
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