New Delhi: Amazon's Jeff Bezos has been nominated ‘Best CEO of 2013' by Sydney Finkelstein, professor of strategy and leadership at the Tuck School of Business.
In his annual list of c-suite winners and losers of the year, Finkelstein has placed Eike Batista of Brazil's EBX/OGX/OSX as the worst. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Thorsten Heins also find place in the worst performing CEOs' list.
Finkelstein calls Bezos as the new Steve Jobs of business. He said Bezos stood out for his “long-term focus in an era where CEOs live in fear of missing quarterly numbers.” He described Amazon boss as a “cross between UPS, the NY Public Library, and a giant warehouse” who transformed a “boring business” into a cool brand with low prices. “Super competitive, Bezos thrives on beating up weak players and industries and what is now a giant company is as nimble as a startup.”
“Bezos is building a huge talent pipeline via MBA hires and his recent use of the drone delivery story as a PR coop just before Cyber Monday was a stroke of genius. Jeff Bezos is the new Steve Jobs of business.”
Eike Batista, the Brazilian entrepreneur, is known for his fortune in gold mines. He created inter-locking companies OGX/OSX to exploit oil fields off the coast of Brazil supposedly holding 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil. But Batista made over-optimistic forecasts and underestimated the difficulty and cost of extracting oil deposits from salt, sand, and rock beneath the sea, Finkelstein said.
“Eike Batista is not experienced as a manager in this industry but is an incredible salesman who convinced investors to put up $20 billion dollars,” said Finkelstein.
Sydney Finkelstein teaches management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and is the author of “Why Smart Executives Fail” and the sequel, “Think Again,” that focuses on why good leaders make bad decisions.
Best CEOs of 2013
1. Jeff Bezos, Amazon
