By Oliver Bourton – Executive Grapevine International Ltd
Glassdoor has released their survey from employees of businesses to find who they think are the top CEOs of 2019.
All reviews are anonymous voluntary submissions from employees through Glassdoor throughout the year. The average company CEO rating is 69% on Glassdoor, with around 900,000 companies registered and reviewed on there.
Two recruiting firms made it into the list this year, with Alistair Cox of Hays at 29th, and CEO of REED James Reed landing the 20th place spot.
Top of the list this year was Peter Simpson, CEO of Anglian Water, beating companies such as Google, IKEA and Apple. Anglian also came first place in the industry league tables for customer service this year. Simpson has a great relationship with his employees, talking a lot about the “social contract” between the company and those it employs.
The Anglian Water CEO received £8million in the past five years through salary, bonuses and other benefits that the company provides. Despite this, employee satisfaction at the company is the highest in the world according to Glassdoor and has been for several years.
Andrew Haines, CEO of Network Rail, as recently been appointed to his position, with a 27% smaller pay packet than the former Chief Executive, Mark Carne. He has made a strong impression on the company so far and holds second place because of his approach of looking to the employees whilst making crucial decisions.
What is slightly embarrassing about Glassdoor’s list is that only two out of the 50 CEOs on there are female. This just highlights the efforts that need to be made to get more women in business and at the top levels of companies.
Here is Glassdoor’s list of employee chosen top 50 CEOs of 2019:
| Name | Company | Approval rating | |
| 1 | Peter Simpson | Anglian Water | 99% |
| 2 | Andrew Haines | Network Rail | 98% |
| 3 | Craig Donaldson | Metro Bank | 98% |
| 4 | Michael Bloomberg | Bloomberg L.P. | 98% |
| 5 | Jurgen Maier | Siemens | 97% |
| 6 | Laurence Fink | BlackRock | 97% |
| 7 | James Gorman | Morgan Stanley | 97% |
| 8 | Jamie Dixon | J.P. Morgan | 97% |
| 9 | Warren East | Rolls-Royce | 97% |
| 10 | Ben Van Beurden | Shell | 97% |
| 11 | Toby Kelly | Trailfinders | 97% |
| 12 | Gene Hall | Gartner | 97% |
| 13 | Mark Evans | O2 | 96% |
| 14 | David Wadhwani | AppDynamics | 96% |
| 15 | David Dyson | Three | 96% |
| 16 | Peter Redfern | Taylor Wimpey | 96% |
| 17 | Simon Williams | NTT DATA | 96% |
| 18 | Bill McDermott | SAP | 96% |
| 19 | Phil Loney | Royal London | 95% |
| 20 | James Reed | REED | 95% |
| 21 | David Rowland | Accenture | 95% |
| 22 | Pascal Soriot | AstraZeneca | 95% |
| 23 | Colin Crooks | Shell Energy Retail | 95% |
| 24 | Sundar Pichai | 94% | |
| 25 | Mark Cowlard | Arcadis | 94% |
| 26 | Andy Ransom | Rentokil Initial | 93% |
| 27 | Tim Lee | Helping Hands Home Care | 93% |
| 28 | Brian Cassin | Experian | 93% |
| 29 | Alistair Cox | Hays Recruiting | 93% |
| 30 | Eddie Hawthorne | Arnold Clark | 93% |
| 31 | Peter Done | Peninsula | 93% |
| 32 | Michael Corbat | Citi | 93% |
| 33 | Johan Lundgren | easyJet | 93% |
| 34 | Rob Papps | Nando’s UK & IRE | 93% |
| 35 | Jim Rose | WIS International | 92% |
| 36 | Jesper Brodin | IKEA | 92% |
| 37 | Bradley Jacobs | XPO Logistics | 92% |
| 38 | Brian Moynihan | Bank of America | 92% |
| 39 | Lindsley Ruth | RS Components | 92% |
| 40 | Liv Garfield | Severn Trent | 91% |
| 41 | Pamela Nicholson | Enterprise | 91% |
| 42 | Mark Weinberger | Ernst & Young | 91% |
| 43 | Steve Hare | Sage | 91% |
| 44 | Simon Gillespie | British Heart Foundation | 91% |
| 45 | Friedrich Joussen | TUI Group | 91% |
| 46 | Nic Budden | Foxtons | 91% |
| 47 | Ren Zhengfei | Huawei Technologies | 90% |
| 48 | Ivan Menezes | Diageo | 90% |
| 49 | Satya Nadella | Microsoft | 90% |
| 50 | Bill Mills | Explore Learning | 90% |
What do you think makes these CEOs popular? What are they doing right?
