Top 10 World's Best CEOs of 2025: Satya Nadella of Microsoft is No1

The assessment criteria involve analyzing data to measure brand strength, expressed as a score out of 100. This evaluation is based on insights from analysts, investors, and the informed public with expertise in branding and corporate management.

Top 10 World’s Best CEOs of 2025

1. Satya Nadella – Microsoft (95.6 brand strength score)
2. Tim Cook – Apple (93.2 brand strength score)
3. Jensen Huang – NVIDIA (93.2 brand strength score)
4. Benedetto Vigna – Ferrari (89.9 brand strength score)
5. Sundar Pichai – Google (89.3 brand strength score)
6. Elon Musk – Tesla (89.1 brand strength score)
7. Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber – ADNOC (88.2 brand strength score)
8. Lei Jun – Xiaomi (86.8 brand strength score)
9. Sashi Jagdishan – HDFC Bank (85.5 brand strength score)
10.Wang Chuanfu – BYD (84.5 brand strength score)

Thailand also has a CEO featured in the Top 100 list, with Kongkrapan Intarajang from PTT ranking 66th with a brand strength score of 76.4. Meanwhile, several ASEAN CEOs also delivered outstanding performances, including Wee Ee Cheong from UOB Bank, Singapore at rank 54, Khairussaleh Ramli from Maybank, Malaysia at rank 85, and Tao Duc Thang from Viettel, Vietnam at rank 88.

The top 100 by the numbers

The vast majority of CEOs in the ranking are American – 42 of the 100 – with China in second with 9, followed by 7 from India and 5 from Germany. No other country has more than 3 CEOs in the BGI.

The industry most heavily represented is banking with 14 CEOs, followed by automobiles, technology, and retail. The most common background for a 2025 Brand Guardian is engineering, followed by business and finance.

The youngest CEO on the list is Joshua Kobza, the 37-year-old CEO of the iconic Canadian fast-food chain Tim Hortons.

The oldest brand guardian is Zhengfei Ren, 80, CEO of Chinese electronics company Huawei.

About half of the CEOs in the BGI are in their 50s, and just under 40 are in their 60s. Just 11 of the CEOs are younger than 49 and 4 are older than 70.

In 2025, the top driver of CEO reputation is “Genuinely cares about employees,” replacing last year’s top driver of “Champions Sustainability,” the latter of which is now the fifth most important driver. This increased importance placed on empathy in leaders is likely a response to economic volatility, mental health challenges, and technological advancements that can rapidly change the expectations and experience of employees.

The second-strongest driver, “Inspiring positive change,” is also aligned with human-centred leadership.

Rounding out the top five drivers of CEO reputation are “Inspires positive change,” “Trustworthy,” and “Understands customer needs”. The demand for CEOs to inspire positive change surged up the ranks from last year, when it was the sixth most important, indicating a growing expectation that CEOs act as catalysts for innovation, societal progress, and organisational transformation.

In 2024, while having a strong strategy and vision were critical, now the focus has shifted to leadership that can execute meaningful change that resonates with all stakeholders. The implication for CEOs is that to protect and improve their reputations, they must actively champion progress, navigate uncertainty, and align their leadership with broader societal and organisational goals.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, is the top-ranked brand guardian for 2024. He’s led the tech giant for just over a decade, during which he’s focused on cloud computing and artificial intelligence. An initial $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019 is now a multibillion-dollar partnership deal which secures Azure as the cloud provider and will see Microsoft deploy OpenAI tech across its suite of products. On average, Nadella has delivered 26% brand value growth per year.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is 3rd ranked, unsurprising given that the AI giant broke into the top 10 most valuable brands in the world for 2025 after surging 98% to US$87.9 billion and securing the 9th place spot.

Another notable highlight is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who jumped from 19th place last year to 6th place this year, marking a significant leap in brand growth. His ranking in the Brand Guardianship Index improved substantially despite Tesla losing $15 billion in brand value.

The highest-ranked woman in the 2025 BGI is Chanel CEO Lenna Nair, who has led the luxury clothing and cosmetics brand since 2022. Nair is ranked 19th and is one of only 7 women on the 2025 list of the 100 top CEOs. Chanel headhunted Nair from her previous role as Chief HR officer at Unilever. She embodies brand guardianship because of her people-centric experience, but she is also vocal about building the brand and long-term value. Nair also demonstrates an appreciation for the brand’s legacy heritage – she speaks highly of the legacy of Gabrielle Chanel and is passionate about leaving her own legacy on the organisation’s people, brand, and the planet.

Brand Finance data from 2023 – 2025 reveals that not only are an increasing number of the top 100 CEOs external appointments, but women are more likely to be externally appointed. In 2023, 17% of CEOs were externally appointed, rising slightly to 20% in 2024, then nearly doubling to 39% in 2025. The 2025 BGI also indicates that while half of the men in the BGI became CEOs via internal promotion, every woman in the Index was an external hire, suggesting that external recruitment for the top job is more equitable, compared to internal succession planning.