Swiss financial research firm ‘Obermatt’, releases an annual ranking of the best corporate CEOs in Switzerland. Their integrated analysis is performed on large enterprises with a turnover of above 2 billion US dollars, as well as on medium enterprises with a turnover of 0.1 to 2 billion US dollars. The top achiever within the medium enterprises category is Egyptian Khaled Bichara, CEO of Orascom Development Holding.
Obermatt measures CEO performance with the three most important performance metrics: growth, operating performance, and shareholder return. Each metric is calculated relative to a global set of comparable peers. The group of peers, unique for each company, is comprised of companies that are most similar to the company being evaluated. The analysts behind this research have compared 218 Swiss companies to 5286 global ones, using the aforementioned criteria.
According to Hermann Stern – the CEO of Obermatt these factors lead to fair results when it comes to performance evaluation. He reasons that this method is more transparent, as no confidential data is used and it is more objective because no personal judgments are taken into consideration.
Not included in this ranking however, are other qualities like HR management and exterior communication. Stern sees this as an advantage as his firm’s research is done from an investor’s perspective. According to Stern, Obermatt measures financial facts, which also means that they sometimes know what is actually going on within a company faster than the public.
“People often think in absolute quantities and therefore oversee relative changes,” adds Stern.
