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The best CEOs of 2013

For several years I’ve compiled a list of the worst chief executive officers of the year, leaders who, by virtue of their poor performance, warrant being called out. Last week I named the worst CEOs of 2013, and this week I turn my attention, for the first time, to the best.

There are two criteria I considered:

Did the CEO’s company experience a significant improvement in performance, as indicated by its stock price, cash position, market share or other key financial metrics?

Does the CEO deserve credit for this success, in that he or she actively made decisions or followed strategies that were related to that success? As was the case for worst CEOs, it is important to focus on those leaders who stood out by virtue of what they did, and not because of general economic conditions in a particular industry or sector.

So, who were the best CEOs of 2013? Scroll through the images above to see the five best, beginning with No. 5. Remember the infamous “Qwikster” debacle when the company announced it would split its DVD by mail business from its emerging broadband streaming business, raising prices in the process?

Customers revolted, more than one million strong, and Hastings was roundly pilloried in the press. I ranked him among the worst CEOs of 2011.

But what a recovery! It helped that cheap michael kors handbags the underlying idea for the shift made sense ordering movies by mail is a very analogue way to make money but after apologising for how Netflix treated customers, Hastings spearheaded a renewed focus on execution and innovation at the $22.2bn market capitalisation company. Media companies use technology to deliver content. Netflix has become a technology company that delivers content to customers in original ways.

Hastings is aggressively pushing Netflix into global markets, where it often faces local copycat competitors that are unlikely to have the same level of Michael Kors handbag outlet technological sophistication. This powerful growth strategy, when coupled with an innovative culture that is generating original content like the Emmy nominated drama “House of Cards”, helped account cheap michael kors for a tripling of Netflix’s market cap in 2013. This year we can add to that list of cool the CEO behind one of the most explosive growth stories of 2013: John Idol of Michael Kors.

Idol was part of a team alongside Lawrence Stroll and Silas Chou who acquired the Michael Kors business in 2003 when it was generating just $20 million in sales. Despite his incredible talent as a designer, Michael Kors the man had been struggling for some time running his business.

Enter John Idol. He defined the company’s value proposition as runway fashion at accessible prices, a category that placed replica cheap Michael Kors Michael Kors below the Louis Vuitton’s of the world, but above just about everyone else. He repositioned the company to pay particular attention to accessories handbags, shoes, watches, jewellery which tend to get less beaten down by discounting. And he created two brands: the flagship Michael Kors that commanded the highest prices and the fake michael kors Michael by Michael Kors brand that brought accessible luxury to a wider audience.

This new strategy has taken off. Revenues are around $3bn, with $1bn of that coming from watches. Same store sales growth hit an unheard of 40%, the number of Michael Kors stores is growing around the world and the stock is up 4 times the 2011 IPO price.

Idol is something of a post modern CEO. His management style: being replica michael kors inclusive, fighting against silos, open to debate, creating opportunities for new talent to develop and avoiding complacency.

Photo: Idol, on left, with michael kors cheap Vogue editor Anna Wintour and designer Michael Kors (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty cheap Michael Kors Images)

The third best CEO of 2013 Pony Ma is the founder and CEO of the Chinese Internet company Tencent. To say that 2013 has been a good year for him and his firm would be an understatement. The market valuation of Tencent has skyrocketed to more cheap michael kors bags than $100bn, to Facebook like levels, the new mobile platform WeChat has almost tripled its active users (25% outside of China) and the company appears to be poised for tremendous growth.

What is especially impressive about the leadership of Pony Ma is the transformation of the once PC dominated company to a leading cheap michael kors purses player in mobile. Two years ago Ma pushed Tencent to develop a new mobile platform from scratch, shifting more than half of the company’s 20,000 employees to work on the challenge.Articles Connexes：