Oct 29, 2010

Morten Hansen Wins Research Award for Article on “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World”

School of Information professor Morten Hansen and his co-authors have been named the winners of the 2010 AESC European Research on Leadership Award for their article “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World”, which was published in the Harvard Business Review in January–February of this year.

Morten Hansen is a management scholar whose research focuses on collaboration, managing innovation, and corporate transformation in information-intensive companies. He is also the author of the book Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results.

For their article “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World”, Morten Hansen, Herminia Ibarra, and Urs Peyer collected data about 2,000 corporate CEOs worldwide. They analyzed the companies’ performance over the CEO’s entire time in office to produce a ranking of the top CEOs.

It may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops their list. However, the ranking does contain a few surprises; you’ll see some relatively unknown faces at the top. The inverse is also true: some highly-regarded CEOs don’t even make the top 50, based on their actual performance.

The research award is presented by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), the professional body representing retained executive search consulting firms around the world. The prize honors the most interesting published research on leadership and corporate governance.

The award will be presented at a gala dinner on November 18, 2010, at the association’s annual European conference in Paris.

Last updated:

October 4, 2016