Novo Nordisk’s Lars Rebien Sørensen is one of the “best performing CEOs in the world” according to a global ranking from the Harvard Business Review. 

 

Sørensen was ranked number six on the list and was the top CEO from outside of the United States. Top CEO Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon and the rest of the top five are all based in the US. 

 

Sørensen, who has been at Novo since 2000, has produced a 621 percent total country-adjusted shareholder return and industry-adjusted returns of 1,214 percent. 

 

The Harvard Business Review’s rankings looked at the companies that were in the S&P Global 1200 at the end of 2013 and ranked CEOs on a variety of metrics including increase in market capitalization and country-adjusted shareholder returns. 

 

“How do you measure a CEO’s worth? We decided to approach the task scientifically, basing the ranking on hard data, not on reputation or anecdote,” the Harvard Business Review’s editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius said in a statement. 

 

“We acknowledge, of course, that being a good CEO is about far more than just investment performance. Leading a company and creating value depend on many skills that are hard to measure—strategic vision, authenticity, long-term planning. And investors certainly aren’t the only stakeholders that need tending to; the best-run companies connect effectively with customers, employees, and the communities where they operate,” Ignatius added. 

 

Sørensen's total compensation of $2,760,550 made him just the 65th best-paid CEO on the list. 

 

The Harvard Business Review’s ranking included CEOs representing 22 different nationalities, but only two women were included in the 100-person list.