Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella bagged the top spot in Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year 2019 list.
The list is an annual compilation that also includes Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga who is ranked 8th and Arista head Jayshree Ullal who comes in at the 18th spot.
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Fortune’s annual Businessperson of the Year list features 20 business leaders “who tackled audacious goals, overcame impossible odds, found creative solutions”.
“In a year dominated by political chaos and bluster, it was a rare brand of steady — even quiet — leadership that won the day in the business world. And no one epitomises that brand of obsessively results-driven, team-based leadership more than our new No. 1 Businessperson of the Year,” Fortune said.
Fortune said Nadella, a computer scientist, was “neither a founder like Bill Gates, nor a big-personality sales leader like his predecessor, Steve Ballmer when he was named the “surprise choice” to lead the Microsoft in 2014.
“He’d never worked in finance, another training ground for CEOs. And his stature on the global stage was non-existent. What’s more, having joined Microsoft in 1992, he was thoroughly steeped in a dog-eat-dog Microsoft culture that had contributed to the company’s stagnation,” Fortune said.
Today, Nadella “wears the gaps in his resume as comfortably as the jeans and blazers that are his corporate uniform”, it said.
“Key to his leadership style is a willingness to delegate,” particularly to three members of his management team — president Brad Smith, who runs policy and legal affairs; Microsoft’s chief financial officer Amy Hood and chief people officer Kathleen Hogan. “I am wired to be fairly confident in myself and to let others shine,” Fortune quotes Nadella as saying.
The list also includes CEO of Perth-based Fortescue Metals Group Elizabeth Gaines on the second spot, Puma CEO Bjorn Gulden ranked 5th, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (10), Accenture CEO Julie Sweet (15) and Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang (16).