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POST-PANDEMIC, HAVE EXPECTATIONS OF CEOS CHANGED FOREVER?
Once, you might have expected to describe a top CEO with words like: powerful, focused, inscrutable and profitable. While there have been efforts to shift business priorities towards Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria in recent years, the CEOs seen as the most successful have mainly been those that have driven growth and financial success.
Our research – analysing more than 2.4 million datapoints generated by online conversations about FTSE 100 CEOs from January to May 2020 – shows all this has changed.
In a post-pandemic world, the language used to describe the most admired leaders uses a new vocabulary – with words like: humane, purposeful, authentic and accessible. This reflects the new style of more empathetic, socially-aware, yet decisive leadership that has come even more to the fore during the COVID-19 crisis. The CEOs now perceived as being most successful are no longer those who focus on profit, but those who are seen as being the most supportive of their people, customers and communities.
Hand in hand with this fresh focus on a more inclusive form of capitalism is a more open, human, personal style of communication – often direct to key stakeholder groups via social media and owned digital channels. The old ways of corporate communication have mostly been seen as too impersonal and remote for what has been a very human crisis.
This CEO Leaderboard is the first objective benchmark based on the actions and communications of CEOs and the impact these have had on their reputation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Once, you might have expected to describe a top CEO with words like: powerful, focused, inscrutable and profitable. While there have been efforts to shift business priorities towards Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria in recent years, the CEOs seen as the most successful have mainly been those that have driven growth and financial success.
Once, you might have expected to describe a top CEO with words like: powerful, focused, inscrutable and profitable. While there have been efforts to shift business priorities towards Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria in recent years, the CEOs seen as the most successful have mainly been those that have driven growth and financial success.
Our research – analysing more than 2.4 million datapoints generated by online conversations about FTSE 100 CEOs from January to May 2020 – shows all this has changed.
In a post-pandemic world, the language used to describe the most admired leaders uses a new vocabulary – with words like: humane, purposeful, authentic and accessible. This reflects the new style of more empathetic, socially-aware, yet decisive leadership that has come even more to the fore during the COVID-19 crisis. The CEOs now perceived as being most successful are no longer those who focus on profit, but those who are seen as being the most supportive of their people, customers and communities.
Download Full Report
Sucessfully submitted!
Our research – analysing more than 2.4 million datapoints generated by online conversations about FTSE 100 CEOs from January to May 2020 – shows all this has changed.
In a post-pandemic world, the language used to describe the most admired leaders uses a new vocabulary – with words like: humane, purposeful, authentic and accessible. This reflects the new style of more empathetic, socially-aware, yet decisive leadership that has come even more to the fore during the COVID-19 crisis. The CEOs now perceived as being most successful are no longer those who focus on profit, but those who are seen as being the most supportive of their people, customers and communities.
Hand in hand with this fresh focus on a more inclusive form of capitalism is a more open, human, personal style of communication – often direct to key stakeholder groups via social media and owned digital channels. The old ways of corporate communication have mostly been seen as too impersonal and remote for what has been a very human crisis.
This CEO Leaderboard is the first objective benchmark based on the actions and communications of CEOs and the impact these have had on their reputation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hand in hand with this fresh focus on a more inclusive form of capitalism is a more open, human, personal style of communication – often direct to key stakeholder groups via social media and owned digital channels. The old ways of corporate communication have mostly been seen as too impersonal and remote for what has been a very human crisis.
This CEO Leaderboard is the first objective benchmark based on the actions and communications of CEOs and the impact these have had on their reputation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the wake of the pandemic, the list of FTSE 100 CEOs ranked by reputation looks very different to the one ranked by their firms’ market capitalisation:
data powered by enodo global
1 March - 20 May
Top 25 FTSE CEOs
Simon Borrows
3i GROUP PLC
01
Pascal Soriot
AstraZeneca PLC
02
George Weston
AB Foods PLC
03
Alan Jope
Unilever PLC
04
Philip Jansen
BT Group PLC
05
Donal Murphy
DCC PLC
06
Craig Hayman
Aveva Group PLC
07
Peter Cowgill
JD Sports PLC
08
John Pettigrew
National Grid Group PLC
09
Jes Staley
Barclays PLC
10
Brian Cassin
Experian PLC
11
Brendan Horgan
Ashtead Group PLC
12
Carolyn McCall
ITV PLC
13
Tim Steiner
Ocado Group PLC
14
Alison Rose
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC
15
Liv Garfield
Severn Trent PLC
16
Miles Roberts
DS Smith PLC
17
Mark Read
WPP PLC
18
Ben van Beurden
Royal Dutch Shell PLC
19
Roland Diggelmann
Smith & Nephew PLC
20
David Sleath
SEGRO PLC
21
Nick Read
Vodafone Group PLC
22
David Potts
Morrison Supermarkets PLC
23
Emma Walmsley
GlaxoSmithKline PLC
24
Peter Brooks-Johnson
RightMove PLC
25
Ranked by reputation score – a proprietary SJR methodology – recorded during the key period of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK (1 Mar – 20 May, 2020). See Methodology for details.
THE TOP 10
CRISIS NAVIGATORS
THE TOP 10 CRISIS NAVIGATORS
Many hard-earned CEO reputations held up during the primary period that the pandemic hit the UK (1 March - 20 May, 2020), while others were dragged down by sector- or company-specific situations. Some reputations were helped by relatively solid business performance during the crisis – while others managed to maintain good reputations despite seeing their businesses hit hard.
But what about those CEOs whose reputations considerably improved, despite the crisis?
Why were they perceived to have navigated the challenges of COVID-19 so well? And who are they?
Methodology
THE DATA SET is the FOUNDATION
Our proprietary methodology uses a Python written platform to collect all publicly available data anywhere digitally available. Thus, the data set is more robust and includes online local, national and international news outlets, RSS feeds, 20+ social media sites and additional publicly available data.
It is a complete picture of everything about a person that exists in the digital world, providing a view of how an individual is perceived based on all the information about that individual across traditional and social media, conversations and any other information.
FTSE 100 CEOS
The Leaderboard data set was created to assess the online conversation around the FTSE 100 CEOs between 1 January and 20 May, 2020. The data set included:
The baseline assessment spanned from 1 January – 29 February, 2020. The second period included data from 1 March – 20 May to assess the performance of each CEO during the period when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the UK.
The Leaderboard accounts for the positive, neutral and negative sentiment that occurs around the CEO’s communications and what is written and posted about the CEO. The scores or rankings range from 0 to 100, with higher scores representing higher positive and neutral sentiment.
