Mukesh Ambani beats Nadella to bag 2nd rank on world’s top CEOs list

Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of India's largest conglomerate, has notched the second place on Brand Finance’s world’s top CEOs list, which in fact is dominated by Indian-origin bosses.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took the pole position, reflecting his crucial role in overseeing Nvidia’s advancement into the next era of computing, through innovation in artificial intelligence, digital biology, climate sciences, and autonomous vehicles and robotics, the brand valuation consultancy said.

Ambani displaced Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, who now sits in 3rd place. Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Deloitte’s Punit Renjen occupies the fourth, fifth and sixth ranks.


"Ambani continues to oversee Reliance’s transition into green energy, and the diversification of its telecoms and retail branches," said Brand Finance. "This commitment to positive change has positively raised his perception as Chairman and Managing Director of the group and is reflected by Ambani’s top performance on the ‘Inspires positive change’ metric within the Brand Guardianship Index," it added.

Six Indian chief executives featured in the top 100 and two in the top 10. Also, four Indian-American CEOs were in the top 10.

CHANEL CEO Leena Nair was the highest ranked female in the ranking in 11th position. Only 7 out of 100 brand guardians are female, according to the report.

Half of the leaders in the 10 list came from the tech and media sectors, down from 9 out of 10 in 2022.

"Commercial leadership and inspiring positive change
are now the top two most important drivers of
reputation, reflecting the necessity of maintaining a
strong focus on commercial outcomes in an uncertain
global financial environment," the report said.