Apple’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs is the “ultimate CEO who matters,” according to a new survey by Barron’s magazine.
The annual ranking of top CEOs from around the world seeks to identify the corporate leaders who have top-notch reputations in the financial community and would be missed by investors if they unexpectedly left their jobs.
Barron’s estimates Jobs’ departure would result in a greater loss of stock-market value than the loss of any other CEO in the world. The magazine estimates Jobs might be worth 20 or so points to Apple shares, or roughly $16 billion in market capitalization.
All in all, 21 of the 30 CEO were returning to the list from 2006. Two of those departing, Steve Reinemund of PepsiCo and John Browne, were removed because of retirement. (Browne will retire later this year. Reinemund left his post at Pepsi last September.)
Here is a list of the top 30 in alphabetical order:
| Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway |
| Kenneth Chenault | American Express |
| George David | United Technologies |
| Charlie Ergen | Echostar |
| Larry Fink | Blackrock |
| Lew Frankfort | Coach |
| Satory Iwata | Nintendo |
| Richard Fuld | Lehman Brothers |
| Steven Jobs | Apple |
| Fred Goodwind | Royal Bank of Scotland |
| Henning Kagermann | SAP |
| Jeffrey Immelt | General Electric |
| Richard Kovacevich | Wells Fargo |
| A.G. Lafley | Procter & Gamble |
| Terry Leahy | Tesco |
| John Mackey | Whole Foods |
| Lakshmi Mittal | Arcelor Mittal |
| Allan Moss | Macquarie |
| Angelo Mozilo | Countrywide Financial |
| Rupert Murdoch | News Corp. |
| Michael O'Leary | Ryanair Holdings |
| Franck Riboud | Groupe Danone |
| Peter Rose | Expeditors International |
| Steven Roth | Vornando Realty |
| James Schiro | Zurich Financial |
| Bob Simpson | XTO Energy |
| James Sinegal | Costco Wholesale |
| Fred Smith | FedEx |
| Ratan Tata | Tata Sons |
| Jong-Yong Yun | Samsung Electronics |