You’ll want to work for one of these large or small-to-midsize companies, with rankings gathered from a year of research and 10M ratings across 60K US companies.
Image: Zoom
There’s no more of an honest assessment when it’s given anonymously, and that’s how the workplace culture and compensation monitoring site Comparably compiled its annual “best of/top” lists.
The Best CEOs 2020 unsurprisingly helm popular and successful businesses.
No. 1 CEO for the large companies (more than 500 employees) list was Eric Yuan, founder and chief executive of Zoom Video Communications.
Comparably gave him an A+, or 4.9 out of 5, as well as a score of 98/100. In a year (the poll was conducted from Dec. 1, 2019 to Dec. 1, 2020), his company’s name has become a verb among today’s workforce, the gold-standard of in-company video communications and meetings. Yuan’s company bio notes that he founded Zoom in 2011, and was previously corporate vice president of engineering, responsible for collaboration software development at Cisco. He was also one of the founding engineers and vice president of engineering at Webex from 1997 to 2011. During his tenure at Webex, Yuan built his team from 10 engineers to 800 worldwide, with revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. He was also previously named “#1 CEO” by Glassdoor and last year was added to the Bloomberg 50 as a leader who changed the game in global business.
The No. 2 and No. 3 best CEOs for large companies were, respectively, Brian Halligan of HubSpot and Sundar Pichai of Google.
SEE: Businesses struggling to support burned out employees (TechRepublic)
Top 50 CEOs of large companies (more than 500 employees)
1. Eric Yuan, Zoom Video Communications, San Jose, CA
2. Brian Halligan, HubSpot, Cambridge, MA
3. Sundar Pichai, Google, Mountain View, CA
4. Satya Nadella, Microsoft, Redmond, WA
5. Shantanu Narayen, Adobe, San Jose, CA
6. Ryan Smith, Qualtrics, Provo, UT
7. Patrick Pacious, Choice Hotels, Rockville, MD
8. Timothy Cook, Apple, Cupertino, CA
9. Annette Brüls, Medela, McHenry, IL
10. Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral, Belmont, CA
11. Robert Frist, Jr., HealthStream, Nashville, TN
12. Mitch Snyder, Bell, Fort Worth, TX
13. Ian Siegel, ZipRecruiter, Santa Monica, CA
14. Daniel Dines, UiPath, New York, NY
15. Lynn Jurich, Sunrun, San Francisco, CA
16. Manny Medina, Outreach, Seattle, WA
17. Bert Bean, Insight Global, Atlanta, GA
18. John Foley, Peloton, New York, NY
19. Dan Rosensweig, Chegg, Santa Clara, CA
20. Henry Schuck, ZoomInfo, Vancouver, WA
21. Carlos Rodriguez, ADP, Roseland, NJ
22. Doug Mack, Fanatics, Jacksonville, FL
23. Steve Bilt, Smile Brands, Irvine, CA
24. Kenneth Lin, Credit Karma, San Francisco, CA
25. John Van Siclen, Dynatrace, Waltham, MA
26. Kevin Phillips, ManTech, Herndon, VA
27. Carl Russo, Calix, San Jose, CA
28. Sam Malouf, Malouf, Logan, UT
29. Pierre Naudé, nCino, Wilmington, NC
30. Bryce Maddock, TaskUs, San Antonio, TX
31. Jay Kreps, Confluent, Mountain View, CA
32. Mark Marron, ePlus, Herndon, VA
33. Cesar Carvalho, Gympass, New York, NY
34. Karen White, RMS, Newark, CA
35. Mahe Bayireddi, Phenom People, Ambler, PA
36. Barry Litwin, Systemax, Port Washington, NY
37. Sam Gilliland, Cherwell Software, Colorado Springs, CO
38. Amr ElSawy, Noblis, Reston, VA
39. Mike Walsh, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, New York, NY
40. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Menlo Park, CA
41. David Doctorow, Realtor.com, Santa Clara, CA
42. David Meredith, Everbridge, Burlington, MA
43. Robert Keane, Vistaprint, Waltham, MA
44. Thomas Troy, CSAA Insurance Group, Walnut Creek, CA
45. Jeff Dailey, Farmers Insurance, Woodland Hills, CA
46. Mike Salvino, DXC Technology, Tysons Corner, VA
47. Sumit Singh, Chewy, Dania Beach, FL
48. Tomer Weingarten, SentinelOne, Mountain View, CA
49. Mike Rosenbaum, Guidewire Software, San Mateo, CA
50. Clark Valberg, InVision, all-remote
Comparably’s second list for Best CEO 2020 is for SMBs
Salsify’s co-founder (2012) and CEO Jason Purcell received Comparably scores of 4.6 out of 5, and 92 of 100 (Comparably’s assessment of Purcell points out that he received higher “marks” from men than he did from women). His bio on the Boston-based company site said that prior to Salsify, Purcell ran Endeca’s e-commerce business, was the 24th person brought into the company and helped it grow to its $1B+ exit. Purcell has a bachelor of science in biological and engineering sciences from Washington University.
Rounding out this CEO list were No. 2 Sarah Friar of Nextdoor, and No. 3 Gus Malezis of Imprivata.
Top 50 CEOs of small-to-midsize companies (fewer than 500 employees)
1. Jason Purcell, Salsify, Boston, MA
2. Sarah Friar, Nextdoor, San Francisco, CA
3. Gus Malezis, Imprivata, Lexington, MA
4. Michael Werner, HomeX, Chicago, IL
5. Peter McKay, Snyk, Boston, MA
6. Doug Hirsch/Trevor Bezdek, GoodRx, Santa Monica, CA
7. Larry Dunivan, Namely, New York, NY
8. Tope Awotona, Calendly, Atlanta, GA
9. Mark Faggiano, TaxJar, all-remote
10. Ryan Malone, SmartBug Media, all-remote
11. Christian Gormsen, Eargo, San Jose, CA.
12. Brady Brim-DeForest, Theorem, Encino, CA
13. Ellis McCue, Territory Foods, Arlington, VA
14. Hernan Lopez, Wondery, West Hollywood, CA
15. Joanna McFarland, HopSkipDrive, Los Angeles, CA
16. Ryan Westwood, Simplus, Salt Lake City, UT
17. Alex Goode, GoSite, San Diego, CA
18. David Cancel, Drift, Boston, MA
19. Paddy Spence, Zevia, Los Angeles, CA
20. Alexis Borisy, EQRx, Cambridge, MA
21. Ashvin Kumar, Tophatter, San Francisco, CA
22. Karl Mehta, EdCast, Mountain View, CA
23. Alex Austin, Branch Metrics, Redwood City, CA
24. Ellen Kullman, Carbon, Redwood City, CA
25. Chris DeWolfe, Jam City, Culver City, CA
26. Brian Hartnack, Archer Education, Los Angeles, CA
27. Alvaro Alonso, (General Manager) Beiersdorf North America, Wilton, CT
28. Joel Hyatt, Globality, Menlo Park, CA
29. Dave Thomas, ThomasARTS, Farmington, UT
30. John Benson, Verisys Corporation, South Jordan, UT
31. Shiv Gaglani, Osmosis, Kaysville, UT
32. Jessica Mah, inDinero, Portland, OR
33. Jeffrey Smith, Smule, San Francisco, CA
34. Kyle Nakasuji, Clearcover, Chicago, IL
35. Allison Robinson, The Mom Project, Chicago, IL
36. Jack Altman, Lattice, San Francisco, CA
37. Jeanne Knutzen, PACE Staffing Network, Bellevue, WA
38. Mitch Thrower, Events.com, La Jolla, CA
39. David Woodhouse, NGM Biopharmaceuticals, San Francisco, CA
40. Bruce Card, Paragon Technology Group, Scott AFB, IL
41. Larry O’Connor, Other World Computing, Woodstock, IL
42. John Berger, Sunnova, Houston, TX
43. Todd Olson, Pendo, Raleigh, NC
44. David Wennberg, Quartet Health, New York, NY
45. Matthew Gross, Newsela, New York, NY
46. Gleb Polyakov, Nylas, San Francisco, CA
47. Nobuyuki Ashida, (President) MISUMI USA, Shaumburg, IL
48. Joseph Hansen, Buy Box Experts, Lindon, UT
49. Jason Chicola, Rev.com, Austin, TX
50. Kyle Ford, ArbiterSports, Sandy, UT
