Buffett hänger i som en av 25 bästa vd:arna

With the Covid pandemic in the rearview mirror, this past year couldn’t quite compete with the few before it for the crisis-management skills demanded of top company leaders. But it sure tried. The 2023 Barron’s Top CEOs list includes 25 leaders who found ways to thrive through the mayhem.

Interest rates rose at the fastest pace in four decades, and bonds had their worst year since before the American Revolution, which left banks with paper portfolio losses and sparked a run on deposits that took down three of them. Strong industry players big and small were in a position to scoop up assets, including Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase (ticker: JPM) and Frank B. Holding Jr. at First Citizens BancShares (FCNCA).

Meanwhile, James Gorman at Morgan Stanley (MS) is stepping down after an asset-management growth spree that left rivals who depend on more-volatile trading revenue with fee envy.

Goldilocks gave up trying to tell whether the U.S. economy is running too hot or cooling too quickly, with the yearly inflation rate down by half but still high, and asset prices plump. The best retailers are carefully managing inventories, pricing, and shopper convenience to grow market share without sacrificing profits or adding risk. They include W. Craig Jelinek at Costco Wholesale (COST) and Marvin Ellison at Lowe’s (LOW).

Ramon Laguarta at PepsiCo (PEP) is spicing up the staples business by, among other things, pushing the boundaries of Cheetos variation. When Brian Niccol at Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) isn’t evangelizing about his new chicken al pastor, he’s perfecting his approach to filling digital burrito orders without slowing down counter service.

Computers are doing more thinking for themselves, and investors, maybe a little less, judging by the prices that some are paying for artificial-intelligence exposure. The tech leaders on our list aren’t just riding this wave but also selling into it, after years of preparing their product lines. They include Jensen Huang at Nvidia (NVDA), Satya Nadella at Microsoft (MSFT), Sundar Pichai at Alphabet (GOOGL), Shantanu Narayen at Adobe (ADBE), and Safra Catz at Oracle (ORCL)—yes, that Oracle.

Our list is chosen by a panel of editors and reporters through a process of screening, nomination, discussion, and debate. Picture the 1957 jury drama 12 Angry Men, only collegial and half female, with no murder charges. Come to think of it, forget the movie. We emphasize recent management actions that have positioned companies for success. Many of the CEOs on our list, but not quite all, have had stellar stock returns. This is decidedly not a stock-picking exercise—top CEOs often come attached to ambitious stock valuations.

Tim Cook at Apple (AAPL) and Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) have made the list for years. Many members are new, like Dave Powers at Deckers Outdoor (DECK), who parlayed success in fleecy Ugg boots into a boom in bouncy Hoka sneakers. Some are returning; Tricia Griffith at Progressive (PGR) is gaining market share in a chaotic stretch for car-insurance pricing.

[Other names on the list include:] John C. May’s robo-tractor rise at Deere (DE), Dave Ricks and Eli Lilly’s (LLY) obesity breakthrough, Vicki Hollub and Occidental Petroleum’s (OXY) plan for capturing carbon and using it to boost oil output, and Larry Culp’s feat of market fission at General Electric (GE)—splitting up the business to unleash its best stock performance in years.

Before Greg Brown could build up Motorola Solutions (ticker: MSI), he had to tear down its predecessor. Brown, now 62, became CEO of Motorola in 2008, when it was a flagging conglomerate that included the iconic cellphone business, a cable-television equipment business, a wireless-network infrastructure business, and a business that produced mobile computers, tablets, and bar-code scanners. Brown sold all of it, retaining only the private-networks equipment and services business for police, fire, and the military.

“I hate the phrase, but yes, the walkie-talkies,” says Brown, “And the encryption and the sites, the repeaters and the amplifiers. There are 13,000 private networks. We sell to them and provision end-to-end secure encrypted emergency networks.”

After shrinking the company, renamed Motorola Solutions, Brown focused on growth, making 30 acquisitions for approximately $6 billion. Private-equity giant Silver Lake made two $1 billion investments in the company, with its co-CEOs taking two board seats.

“The market cap of the old conglomerate had dipped to about $8 billion,” says Brown. “Today, we’re about $50 billion and much more focused.”

Since Brown took over 15 years ago, Motorola Solutions stock has returned 668% while the S&P 500 index is up 338%. Is there any room to grow from here? “The addressable market is $60 billion; we will do just under $10 billion,” says Brown. “So, yes, there is plenty of upside.”

Andy Serwer 

At 92, Warren Buffett remains as sharp and engaged as ever, and continues to look for opportunities to put finishing touches on what he has called his Mona Lisa—Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett has been active in the stock market in the past year, as highlighted by the purchase of 25% of Occidental Petroleum. He has also added to Berkshire’s holdings in five Japanese trading companies and now owns $20 billion of them with a big profit. Buffett’s Apple purchase probably is his biggest win ever. That stake is now worth $165 billion, five times what Berkshire paid. But the elephant-size acquisition that he has long sought still eludes him.

Buffett loves reading financial reports. He mentioned at the annual meeting in May that he had just gone through General Motors’ 1932 annual report and was impressed with the “honesty” and insight of the document written at the depth of the Depression. As he told Charlie Rose in an interview last year, he’s “always on the clock” for Berkshire and still works for the $100,000 annual salary he has taken for more than a generation.

Thanks to Buffett’s efforts over 58 years, Berkshire has never been in better shape, with nearly $35 billion in annual earnings power. The stock is slightly behind the market over the past 10 years, but has crushed the S&P 500 index since he took over in 1965. The shares have topped $500,000, up from about $20, an incredible 25,000-fold gain.

Buffett shows no signs of wanting to give up the top job. Investors are happy to see him run Berkshire for as long as he can.

Andrew Bary

Not all that long ago, Oracle looked lost. The software giant posted 1% negative sales growth in both fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2020. But CEO Safra Catz was plotting a turnaround—and it’s working.

Catz, 61, is often overshadowed by founder Larry Ellison, the world’s fourth-richest human, who remains actively engaged at 78. But Catz, who joined Oracle in 1999, became co-CEO in 2014, and solo CEO in 2019, is the one running the business, and succeeding with the kind of revamp at scale rarely seen in the tech sector.

The plan had two parts. First, lure enterprise software customers to the cloud and away from proprietary data centers. Less obvious was a decision to build a cloud-computing business to compete with Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Alphabet. It is paying off. Cloud revenue was up 77% in the May quarter, compared with growth in the mid-50% range in the three previous quarters. One reason: The Oracle Cloud is perfect for generative AI.

In a rare interview last year, with Barron’s, Catz conceded that she doesn’t spend a lot of time talking to the media, giving her a low profile. “I see a lot of others who talk more,” she said, “and then after the talking’s done, they are not such good players. I want our results to speak for themselves.”

Eric J. Savitz