NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang tops HBR’s ranking for best-performing CEOs

On the ranking of the world’s best-performing CEOs, annually published by Harvard Business Review (HBR), NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang rises to the #1 spot this year, followed by Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and Kering’s François-Henri Pinault.

This is the first time for this longtime CEO to top the ranking, after taking #2 spot in 2018 and #3 spot in 2017. He has also been recognized on several Forbes listings, including Forbes 400, innovative leaders 2019, and global game changers 2016.

Born in Taiwan, Huang co-founded the California-based chipmaker NVIDIA in 2013. As HBR reported, the firm’s initial focus on GPU for video games has switched to IC for AI applications due to the rising demand for computers to perform sophisticated calculations at a higher speed. Since mid-2010s, these AI-enabled chips have been commonly seen in autonomous vehicles, drones, and other high-tech gadgets.

At Mobile World Congress Los Angeles this year, Huang unveiled Aerial, a software development kit that enables efficient 5G radio access networks on its GPU. He also rolled out a series of partnerships with Ericsson, Microsoft, and Red Hat to bolster the company’s role in 5G and edge computing, according to Techcrunch.

Within three years, from 2015 to 2018, NVIDIA’s stock has soared 14-fold, an outstanding financial performance that puts its CEO on the first place of the ranking for best-performing CEOs.

This year’s result is also based on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) scores; they determine 30% of the overall performance of a given leader, 10% more than in previous years.

To be more specific, according to CSRHub, one of the two data firms that assist HBR with the ranking, ESG rating takes into account measures like company lobbying expenditures, the degree of disclosure on issues such as carbon use, and the presence of a sustainability officer at the company’s top level. The other firm Sustainalytics said the score “reflects risks created by working conditions and employment policies, data security, and antitrust issues.”

Huang said “NVIDIA didn’t change the world by changing what it does. Rather, it has earned the opportunity to change the world by doing things the world needs,” according to CloudWedge. Besides contributing to society and industry at the global level, the company “balances [their] near-term business goals with long-term commitments to improving lives, protecting our environment, and creating a workplace where bright minds of all cultures can build their families and do their life’s work,” he stated on NVIDIA’s CSR report this year.

〔Original :Meet Startup @ TW〕
https://meet.bnext.com.tw/intl/articles/view/45603