Scattered behind all the industry-defining companies are their leaders whose vision has altered the way the world transacts its business, spends, and thinks. These are not merely executives that have reported good quarterly results, but men and women who have reinvented the book. Their choices influenced the modern America and the economies of the world with garages up to the global empires. These are ten CEOs whose currency has stayed long past their reign and their business, and their time.
Steve Jobs, Apple
In 1997, Jobs entered back into Apple when it was on the verge of bankruptcy 90 days before it went bankrupt. He introduced iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad in a span of ten years making Apple the first US company to be worth one trillion dollars. He forever changed the standards of consumer technology, shopping experience and design of products across the globe.
Henry Ford Ford Motor Company
Ford did not simply manufacture cars, he created the contemporary labor force. In 1913, he came up with a moving assembly line that reduced the time taken by production of model T to less than 93 minutes which was more than 12 hours. In 1914, he increased the wages of workers two times to five dollars a day, ensuring a prototype of the American middle and mass consumer economy.
Jack Welch, General Electric
By the time Welch retired in 2001, he had increased GE market cap to the highest in the world, as at 1981, GE market cap was 14 billion and in 2001, it was 410 billion. His systems of performance management, leadership development courses and his discipline in the running of operations became the gold standard in all major US business schools in decades.
Walt Disney, The Walt Disney Company
Disney created one of the most sustained entertainment brands in American history. In 1928, he became the first to do synchronized sound in animation with Steamboat Willie, in 193,7 he invented full-length animated feature films with Snow White, and in 19,55 he created Disneyland, a new field of the industry; the modern theme park experience.
Mary Barra, General Motors
When Barra assumed the position of GM in 2014, she was the first female to head a major automaker in the world. She engineered a landmark recall of 2.6 million vehicles due to defects in their ignition switch, reorganized the operations of GM, and turned this 116-year-old company into an all-electric future vehicle manufacturer – she made a commitment of 35 billion to the development of EV and autonomous vehicles till 2025.
Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie established the biggest steel enterprise ever in American history, and sold it in 1901 to J.P. Morgan at a value of 480 million dollars, which is almost the price of 17 billion dollars now. Out of his vertical integration model, where all the successive steps, including raw materials to distribution, were under his control, it became the playbook of American industrial capitalism and modern supply chain strategy.
Reed Hastings, Netflix
Hastings is the co-founder of Netflix, who in 1997 started the company as a DVD-by-mail service, which he followed with the bold move in 2007 to pivot to streaming at a time of low adoption of broadband. As of 2022, Netflix boasted an excess of 220 million subscribers who paid for the service, and the company has fundamentally broken the old structure of cable television that has been the mainstay of American households over the decades.
