Steve Luczo was ranked No. 34 overall on the magazine’s global list of the top CEOs.
Steve Luczo is among the best leaders in business, says the Harvard Business Review. HBR last week placed Seagate’s boss at No. 34 on its list of the 100 “Best-Performing CEOs in the World.”
“I’m honored to be recognized by such a respected publication and alongside a collection of outstanding leaders,” said Luczo. “Seagate’s performance and reputation are the result of the collective effort and unwavering commitment of our employees around the world.”
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos claimed the top spot, while other top names coming after Luczo on the list were the CEOs of Canon, Starbucks, Walt Disney Company, Nike and Volkswagen, among other global powerhouses.
HBR’s list is the latest in a series of executive leadership-rankings to include Seagate’s CEO. In August, CNNMoney ranked Luczo No. 5 in its list of the top-performing CEOs in the U.S. And in April, Institutional Investor magazine selected him for its “2014 All-America Executive Team (which also included Seagate’s Pat O’Malley and Kate Scolnick).
In compiling its list, HBR focused on total shareholder return and market capitalization. The magazine looked at 832 current CEOs from the S&P Global 1200. The magazine’s researchers then calculated daily company returns for each CEO from the first day that he or she took office through April 30, 2014.
Luczo has been Seagate’s CEO since 2009 (he had previously served as CEO from 1998 through 2004, when he left the CEO position to focus on his role as chairman of the board). Since Luczo returned as CEO in 2009, Seagate’s total shareholder return (country adjusted) was 1,016 percent and total shareholder return (sector adjusted) was 958 percent. Also during that time, Seagate’s market capitalization has increased by $20 billion.
Reputation Also Measured
HBR also examined reputation, strategic vision, authenticity, long-term planning and other “intangibles” in evaluating the world’s top CEOs. Seagate and Luczo ranked No. 32 in reputation, which included measuring products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance. Seagate was one of only five technology companies that made the top 40.
“The top CEOs have undeniably been effective,” wrote HBR editor Adi Ignatius. “We acknowledge, of course, that being a good CEO is about far more than just investment performance. Leading a company and creating value depend on many skills that are hard to measure.”
HBR’s rankings produced some interesting data. Twenty-nine of the top 100 CEOs have MBAs (including Luczo), while 24 have an undergraduate or graduate degree in engineering, and the median age of each CEO is 59. Diversity, however, remains an issue—only two of the top 100 are women.
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