The #TimesUp movement of 2018 shined a spotlight on gender inequality in the workplace, encompassing not only pay inequity but also barriers to advancement and representation of women in leadership. This was the same year that Comparably compiled its inaugural Best CEOs for Women. It’s now 2020 and the gender pay gap is at 20%, women are still scarce in the top leadership positions of the world’s largest corporations (7.4% occupy the Fortune 500), and one out of three women have said they’ve been sexually harassed in the workplace. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to know who women deem as the best leaders to work for that also inspire a positive workplace culture for all.
To determine the list, Comparably analyzed anonymous survey feedback from female employees working across 60,000 U.S. companies large and small. The ranking is based solely on sentiment ratings given by these employees, from how they rate their CEOs to other workplace culture factors that inspire trust in their employers. The list is segmented by Top 50 CEOs of large companies (more than 500 employees) and Top 50 CEOs of small/mid-size businesses (less than 500 employees). Every CEO on the list is in the Top 5% of all CEOs rated by female employees.
Top-Rated CEOs for Women (Large Companies)
1) Annette Brüls, Medela (McHenry, IL)
2) Eric Yuan, Zoom Video Communications (San Jose, CA)
3) Brian Halligan, HubSpot (Cambridge, MA)
4) Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook (Menlo Park, CA)
5) Jeff Bezos, Amazon (Seattle, WA)
6) Bert Bean, Insight Global (Atlanta, GA)
7) Chris Caldwell, Concentrix (Fremont, CA)
8) Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral (Belmont, CA)
9) Satya Nadella, Microsoft (Redmond, WA)
10) Carlos Rodriguez, ADP (Roseland, NJ)
11) Steve Bilt, Smile Brands (Irvine, CA)
12) Karen White, RMS (Newark, CA)
13) Sundar Pichai, Google (Mountain View, CA)
14) Mitch Snyder, Bell (Fort Worth, TX)
15) Daniel Dines, UiPath (New York, NY)
16) Mark Mader, Smartsheet (Bellevue, WA)
17) Jim Loree, Stanley Black & Decker (New Britain, CT)
18) Brian Niccol, Chipotle (Newport Beach, CA)
19) Lynn Jurich, Sunrun (San Francisco, CA)
20) Mark Marron, ePlus inc. (Herndon, VA)
21) Jeff Weiner (stepped down in June 2020), LinkedIn (Sunnyvale, CA)
22) John Van Siclen, Dynatrace (Waltham, MA)
23) Ryan Smith, Qualtrics (Provo, UT)
24) Amy Zupon, Vertafore (Denver, CO)
25) Doug Mack, Fanatics (Jacksonville, FL)
26) Steve Hasker, Thomson Reuters (Ontario, Canada)
27) Gus Malezis, Imprivata (Lexington, MA)
28) Brad Rencher, BambooHR (Lindon, UT)
29) Manny Medina, Outreach (Seattle, WA)
30) Gail Boudreaux, Anthem (Indianapolis, IN)
31) Mahe Bayireddi, Phenom (Ambler, PA)
32) Bruce Goodman, Vector Marketing (Olean, NY)
33) Vishal Garg, Better.com (New York, NY)
34) Robert Quattrocchi, Northside Hospital (Atlanta, GA)
35) Sam Gilliland, Cherwell Software (Colorado Springs, CO)
36) Steve Hare, Sage (Atlanta, GA)
37) Robert Frist, Jr., HealthStream (Nashville, TN)
38) Corie Barry, Best Buy (Minneapolis, MN)
39) Sam Malouf, Malouf (Logan, UT)
40) Bryce Maddock, TaskUs (Santa Monica, CA)
41) Jay Kreps, Confluent (Mountain View, CA)
42) Michelle Gass, Kohl’s (Menomonee Falls, WI)
43) Dan Curtis, BNSF Logistics (Flower Mound, TX)
44) Hayes Barnard, Loanpal (Roseville, CA)
45) Kevin Phillips, ManTech (Herndon, VA)
46) Patrick Pacious, Choice Hotels (Rockville, MD)
47) Mike Salvino, DXC Technology (Tysons, VA)
48) Kevin Lobo, Stryker (Kalamazoo, MI)
49) Vineet Jain, Egnyte (Mountain View, CA)
50) William Wagner, LogMeIn (Boston, MA)
Top-Rated CEOs for Women (Small/Mid-Size Companies)
1) Mark Faggiano, TaxJar (Woburn, MA)
2) Peter McKay, Snyk (Boston, MA)
3) Neha Sampat, Contentstack (San Francisco, CA)
4) Elizabeth Cholawsky, HG Insights (Santa Barbara, CA)
5) Alexis Borisy, EQRx (Cambridge, MA)
6) Paddy Spence, Zevia (Los Angeles, CA)
7) Jason Purcell, Salsify (Boston, MA)
8) Jim VandeHei, AXIOS (Arlington, VA)
9) Michael Werner, HomeX (Chicago, IL)
10) Didier Elzinga, Culture Amp (San Francisco, CA)
11) Scot Chisholm, Classy (San Diego, CA)
12) Alex Goode, GoSite (San Diego, CA)
13) Christian Gormsen, Eargo (San Jose, CA)
14) Ellen Kullman, Carbon (Redwood City, CA)
15) Sandy Gibson, Better Place Forests (San Francisco, CA)
16) Cesar Carvalho, Gympass (New York, NY)
17) Shiv Gaglani, Osmosis (Baltimore, MD)
18) Jeanne Knutzen, PACE Staffing Network (Bellevue, WA)
19) Dave Evans, Fictiv (San Francisco, CA)
20) David Cancel, Drift (Boston, MA)
21) Brandon Rodman, Weave (Lehi, UT)
22) Oleg Rogynskyy, People.ai, (San Francisco, CA)
23) Daniel Yanisse, Checkr (San Francisco, CA)
24) Lidia Yan, NEXT Trucking (Lynwood, CA)
25) John Wise, InvestCloud (West Hollywood, CA)
26) Joseph Hansen, Buy Box Experts (Lindon, UT)
27) Ryan Malone, SmartBug Media (Newport Beach, CA)
28) Marc Pickren, OutboundEngine (Austin, TX)
29) Antony Mattessich, Ocular Therapeutix (Bedford, MA)
30) Joanna McFarland, HopSkipDrive (Los Angeles, CA)
31) Dave Thomas, ThomasARTS (Farmington, UT)
32) Kyle Ford, ArbiterSports (Sandy, UT)
33) Michael Stus, Canidium (Fort Collins, CO)
34) Gal Rimon, Centrical (New York, NY)
35) Joel Hyatt, Globality (Menlo Park, CA)
36) Jay Ackerman, Reveleer (Glendale, CA)
37) Alex Austin, Branch (Redwood City, CA)
38) James Lawson, AdTheorent (New York, NY)
39) David Woodhouse, NGM Biopharmaceuticals (San Francisco, CA)
40) Ashvin Kumar, Tophatter (San Francisco, CA)
41) Bob Young, Lulu Press (Raleigh, NC)
42) Ken Clark, Onward Search (Wilton, CT)
43) Brian Hartnack, Archer Education (Los Angeles, CA)
44) Harry Youtan, Phaidon International (New York, NY)
45) Ken Benvenuto, TeamDynamix (Columbus, OH)
46) Amit Jnagal, Infrrd (San Jose, CA)
47) Ganesh Shankar, RFPIO (Beaverton, OR)
48) Daniel Chait, Greenhouse Software (New York, NY)
49) Brian Cramer, Smarsh (Portland, OR)
50) Brooke LeVasseur, AristaMD (La Jolla, CA)
Methodology
- Comparably’s Best CEOs for Women 2020 list is derived from ratings solely provided by female employees who anonymously rated their CEOs on Comparably.com over a 12-month period (June 30, 2019 through June 30, 2020). The final data set was compiled from 10 million ratings across 60,000 U.S. companies large and small.
- Rankings were determined by the most positive sentiment ratings about the CEO’s effectiveness and management style, along with the company’s overall workplace culture score (based on 20 different workplace culture categories). Additional weight was given to companies with more participation from their employee base, relative to their company size, for statistical significance.
- To qualify, Large companies (more than 500 employees) must have met a minimum of 75 employee participants and Small/Mid-Size companies (fewer than 500 employees) must have met a minimum of 25 employee participants.
- There were no fees or costs associated with participating, nor was nomination required.
About Comparably
Comparably is a workplace culture and compensation monitoring site with a mission to provide more transparent and rewarding workplaces. Employees can access salary data and rate their companies, CEOs, and work experiences through the lens of specific demographics including gender, ethnicity, age, tenure, industry, location, and education. With10 million ratings from employees at over 60,000 U.S. companies, Comparably has become one of the most used SaaS solutions for employer branding and trusted third party sites for salary and workplace culture data. For more information on Comparably, go to www.comparably.com. For highly-cited workplace culture and compensation studies, including Comparably’s annual Workplace Culture Awards, log onto www.comparably.com/blog.
