Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies has been named to the Reputation Institute’s new CEO RepTrak study, which ranks the world’s most reputable CEOs.

The world’s largest reputation study of its kind, the CEO RepTrak is based on more han 28,000 individual ratings collected in the first quarter of 2018 across the G15 economies. It includes unique insights into the dynamics behind reputational impact. The global study shows what drives CEO reputation, the direct correlation between corporate reputation and stakeholder support, according to the Reputation Institute (RI), a reputation measurement, management and intelligence services provider.

“The rubric for what it takes to be a great leader is quickly shifting,” said Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, chief reputation officer at RI. “Assessing a CEO’s performance based solely on financial returns is no longer enough. There is a new era emerging in which the intangibles of reputation are driving political, social and economic change, and giving CEOs reason to reconsider their role as a leader. To be relevant as a contemporary leader today, you need to be a CEO with conscience.”

The RepTrak results show strong leadership across a range of industries internationally, including financial services, technology, food and beverage, consumer and hospitality.Within the global study, six of the top 10 CEOs are executives of US companies and three are CEOs of European businesses. The  top 10 business leaders globally recognized in RI’s 2018 CEO RepTrak study (in alphabetical order) are:

·       Giorgio Armani of Giorgio Armani
·       Keith Barr of InterContinental Hotels Group
·       Fabrizio Freda of The Esteé Lauder Companies  
·       Ralph Hamers of ING[
·       Bernard Hess of The Kraft Heinz Company
·       Tatsumi Kimishima of Nintendo [
·       Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup Company
·       Sundar Pichai of Google
·       Dirk Van de Put of Mondelez International
·       Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn


The study results reveal the importance of CEO activism, with the dimension of responsibility – which includes behaving ethically and caring about social causes – comprising almost one-third of CEO reputation. The central characteristic identified with the top 10 CEOs include public perceptions for empathy, trust, consistency, social responsibility and openness.