Chick-fil-A, Delta Executives Sit Among Most-liked CEOs List

Staff Report From Georgia CEO

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017

Glassdoor, one of the world's largest and fastest growing job sites, today announced the winners of its annual Employees' Choice Awards, honoring the Highest Rated CEOs in 2017 across North America and parts of Europe. Unlike any other workplace awards, the Glassdoor Employees' Choice Awards are based on the input of employees who voluntarily provide anonymous feedback, by completing a company review, about their CEOs leadership, along with insight into their job, work environment and employer over the past year.

This year, the Glassdoor Employees' Choice Awards for the Highest Rated CEOs feature six distinct categories across the U.S., Canada, UK, France and Germany. In the U.S., Glassdoor has revealed the 100 Highest Rated CEOs (honoring CEOs at employers with 1,000 or more employees), and the 25 Highest Rated CEOs at Small & Medium Companies (honoring CEOs at employers with less than 1,000 employees).

The top ten Highest Rated CEOs in 2017 in the U.S. are:

1. The Clorox Company's Benno Dorer (99 percent approval)

2. World Wide Technology's Jim Kavanaugh (99 percent approval)

3. Boston Scientific's Michael F. Mahoney (99 percent approval)

4. Memorial Sloan Kettering's Craig B. Thompson (99 percent approval)

5. Fast Enterprises' Martin Rankin (99 percent approval)

6. NVIDIA's Jen-Hsun Huang (99 percent approval)

7. Bain & Company's Bob Bechek (98 percent approval)

8. SpaceX's Elon Musk (98 percent approval)

9. HubSpot's Brian Halligan (98 percent approval)

10. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (98 percent approval)

The top five Highest Rated CEOs at Small & Medium Companies in 2017 in the U.S. are:

1. Sprout Social's Justyn Howard (99 percent approval)

2. Slingshot's Taylor Olson (99 percent approval)

3. Eliot Management Group's Brady Harris (99 percent approval)

4. Illuminate Education's Lane Rankin (99 percent approval)

5. Skuid's Ken McElrath (99 percent approval)

"CEOs tell us the Glassdoor Employees' Choice Award is one of the highest honors they can receive because it truly reflects employee opinion about the job they do every day. I congratulate all of the winners on this significant honor," said Robert Hohman, Glassdoor co-founder and CEO. "We know that CEO approval ratings correlate to overall employee satisfaction and trust in senior leadership, which contributes to long-term employee engagement, ultimately helping an employer's recruiting and retention efforts."

Glassdoor's 100 Highest Rated CEOs in 2017 list features winning chief executives across diverse industries spanning consumer goods, technology, health care, manufacturing, retail and more. The Clorox Company's Benno Dorer (No. 1, 99 percent approval) is among 52 CEOs debuting as a Highest Rated CEO, along with SpaceX's Elon Musk (No. 8, 98 percent approval) Cheesecake Factory's David Overton (No. 34, 94 percent approval) and General Motors' Mary Barra (No. 65, 91 percent approval). Of the eight women CEOs who make the top 100, the three highest rated women are Enterprise Holdings' Pamela Nicholson (No. 21, 96 percent approval), In-N-Out Burger's Lynsi Snyder (No. 36, 94 percent approval) and Deloitte's Cathy Engelbert (No. 40, 94 percent approval).

On the 2017 list of the 25 Highest Rated CEOs at Small & Medium Companies, the top five CEOs are all newcomers to this list.

This year, there are 17 CEOs who are recognized by employees in multiple countries, including only three CEOs who have made four lists: EY's Mark Weinberger (U.S. Large, Canada, UK, Germany), Microsoft's Satya Nadella (U.S. Large, UK, France, Germany) and SAP's Bill McDermott (U.S. Large, Canada, France, Germany).

When employees submit reviews about their employer on Glassdoor, they are asked to rate several factors tied to their employment experience, including sentiment around their CEO's leadership, in addition to rating workplace attributes like senior management, among others. Specifically, when rating their CEO on Glassdoor, employees are asked to report whether they approve, disapprove or are neutral about the job their CEO is doing.

Among the more than 700,000 employers reviewed on Glassdoor, the average CEO approval rating is 67 percent.