Narayana Murthy among the top 15 most admired business leaders

Infosys chief NR Narayana Murthy and UK-based Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal are the two Indians among the top 15 most admired business leaders of the world in 2005.

Microsoft chief Bill Gates tops the list.

A new global study conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has ranked Murthy as the eighth most admired CEO while Mittal has been ranked 15th. Over 600 global business influentials drawn from a cross section of 19 industries in 65 countries voted for the online survey. No female CEOs or chairmen have been chosen.

Interestingly, Murthy was ranked ahead of Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation, John Chambers of Cisco Systems and Jorma Ollila of Nokia.

Six of the CEO's in the list are from the United States, while four are from UK. The top six positions are shared by the two countries.

The list includes one national from Japan, India, Australia, Finland and Netherlands each. Mittal's name has been put in the Netherlands' list since his company Mittal Steel was registered that country.

Despite the predominance of American companies among the top four most admired leaders, more than half (nine of 15 or 60 per cent) represent other regions -- UK (4), Finland (1), Netherlands (1), Japan/France (1), India (1) and Australia (1).

Eight of the top 15 leaders (53 per cent) are company founders.

All of the global most admired are insider CEOs (CEOs who have been with the same company for three years or more).

"Business decision-makers clearly voted for long-term performance and proven track records over fleeting success," said Patrick Ford, Burson-Marsteller's Global Corporate/Financial Practice chair. "The tenures of these top-ranking CEOs are not short-lived. They had an average tenure of 21 years to repeatedly prove themselves."

"The selection of Bill Gates as the 2005 world's most admired leader not only recognises his ongoing stewardship at the company he founded but it also acknowledges the powerful effect that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has had on Bill Gates' reputation," remarked Dr Leslie Gaines-Ross, Burson-Marsteller's chief knowledge & research officer worldwide and the study's architect.

Original story