Leading Brand Valuation Consultancy Names Microsoft’s Satya Nadella World’s Top CEO
- Google, led by Sundar Pichai, was named the world’s third most valuable brand after Apple and Amazon.
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella has been named the world’s top CEO by a new report published by leading brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance. The Indian American, who also became chairman this year, has been credited “with overhauling Microsoft’s fortunes by changing its culture towards one of teamwork, innovation, and inclusivity, and instilling a growth mindset throughout the business,” Brand Finance said in its report. “This transformation has carried through to the brand’s organizational purpose, which now focuses on empowerment.”
Google, led by Sundar Pichai, was named the world’s third most valuable brand after Apple and Amazon. The company saw value growth of 38 percent to $263.4 billion, the report said. Noting that Google relies on advertising for the vast majority of its revenue, the report aid the brand was hurt at the start of the pandemic as advertising spending dropped due to uncertainty. “However, as the world adjusted to the new normal, and with people spending more and more time online, advertising budgets opened back up and Google’s business rebounded, resulting in a healthy uplift in brand value.”
The report also named TikTok as the world’s fastest-growing brand, leading media revolution, Tripling in brand value over the past year, “With an astounding 215% growth, the entertainment app’s brand value has increased from US$18.7 billion in 2021 to US$59.0 billion this year.,” the report said. It noted that the platform’s rise is “a testament to how media consumption is changing.” it noted. “With its offering of easily digestible and entertaining content, the app’s popularity spread across the globe, however, it also acted as a creative outlet and provided a way for people to connect during the lockdown.”
Last month. Both Nadella and Pichai were named among recipients of the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award.
Nadella, who was named CEO in February 2014, held leadership roles in both enterprise and consumer businesses across Microsoft. He joined the company in 1992 and quickly became known as a leader who could span a breadth of technologies and businesses to transform some of Microsoft’s biggest product offerings. Most recently, he was executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. In this role, he led the transformation to the cloud infrastructure and services business, which outperformed the market and took share from the competition. Previously he led R&D for the Online Services Division and was vice president of the Microsoft Business Division. Before joining Microsoft, Nadella was a member of the technology staff at Sun Microsystems.
The Chennai-born Pichai earned his degree from IIT Kharagpur in metallurgical engineering. Moving to the United States, he attained an M.S. from Stanford University in materials science and engineering and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Google in 2004 and became CEO in August of 2015. Before that, he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google’s consumer products, including Google Toolbar, Chrome and Chrome OS. He was also responsible for the HTML5 and open web platform efforts at Google. Before joining Google, he held various engineering and product management positions at Applied Materials and was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company for a variety of software and semiconductor clients.
(Top photo: courtesy, uchicago.edu)