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Besides McKinsey and GE, what other US companies are considered top breeding grounds for executive leaders?
Hi there and thank you for your question submitted to Wonder where you are looking for a list of companies that are considered top breeding grounds for executive leaders. This was an interesting topic for me to research and I was also able to learn a lot so it was a pleasure for me to work on this for you.
To answer your question in one sentence, you are correct in assuming McKinsey and GE are top companies, but there is a lengthy list including companies such as IBM, General Mills and Procter & Gamble, to name a few.
METHODOLOGY
I will tell you first how I came up with my list in terms of methodology. Firstly, and perhaps most obvious, I discovered there are actually awards given to companies that produce leaders, given by Aon Hewitt. The last awards were given out in 2014 and so I went with this list first. I will give more information as to what they look for to determine who is the top of their list.
Next I searched news articles and other lists that do similar lists and rankings and came up with some data from Chief Executive and Forbes as well as Hay Group. As you can imagine there is some crossover here with companies but it is interesting to not that the methodology by which these organizations determine their top lists differs. In one case, such as with the Hay Group, the list is determined through surveys by employees themselves and in others, such as Chief Executive, they work with consulting firms. Below I will give you the resource and what factors they use to determine who makes their list. Let’s get started with my findings!
As I mentioned above, Aon Hewitt puts out the most comprehensive list of top companies that produce leaders that I could find. As they describe it, “[T]he outstanding companies identified in the latest iteration of the Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders study were found to have the edge that supports and enhances leadership—and leads to great organizational performance. We’ve identified what makes up the DNA of top company leaders.” They go on to explain these companies in further detail by telling us that these companies:
“Have self-aware leaders who understand their personal strengths and weaknesses, and use this information to become more effective leaders of others. Build resilience in their leaders through stretch experiences, encouragement and support for taking risks in innovating, learning from failing quickly, and exposure to multiple perspectives and ideas. Identify and build engaged leaders who connect strongly with their people, who connect their teams more strongly with the organization’s purpose and mission, who are both mobilizers and stabilizers, and who are ambidextrous influencers who can appeal as needed both to minds and to hearts.”
Their lists include global rankings, top companies in India, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand and North America. I focused on American companies as per your request. This list includes companies you mentioned in your query which I have also included. So, the Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders for 2014 (in the US) are:
1 International Business Machines
2 General Mills, Inc.
3 General Electric Company
4 The Procter & Gamble Company
5 Colgate-Palmolive Company
6 3M
7 McDonald's Corporation
8 Intel Corporation
9 Whirlpool Corporation
10 Deere & Company
11 Eli Lilly and Company
12 Sonoco Products Company
13 Cargill, Inc.
14 V.F. Corporation
15 The Boeing Company
16 American Express Company
17 AT&T, Inc.
18 Capital One Financial Corporation
19 UnitedHealth Group Incorporated
20 Kiewit Corporation
21 Fluor Corporation
22 Raytheon Company
23 Yum! Brands, Inc.
24 The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
25 Owens Corning
They give special recognition to:
1 Johnson & Johnson
2 Hewlett-Packard Company
3 Target Corporation
4 DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc
The list I found from Chief Executive is a bit more up to date, with statistics from 2016. According to their website, they have been ranking the Best Public Companies for Leaders since 2005. To compile their list, they partner with a sales and leadership research and consulting firm called GrowthPlay. In terms of method, the website describes that they: “we canvas world-class companies through a questionnaire and interviews to learn what they are doing to identify and nurture people three or more levels down the chain from the CEO.”
They explain: “The final, top-40 ranking consists of public companies with over $1 billion in revenue, and the top 10 on the list scored within several points of one another. We also rank the top 10 private companies. Rankings are affected by a company’s reputation among its peers as a source for well-rounded talent. The percent of senior management recruited from internal talent pools is another criterion.”
So they keep a separate list for private companies and don’t rank them against each other. I am including their top 40 list of public companies only here:
1 General Electric/Jeffrey Immelt
2 EMC Insurance/Bruce Kelley
3 Hitachi Data Systems/Jack Domme
4 IBM/Virginia Rometty
5 Johnson Controls/Alex Molinaroli
6 VF Corporation/Eric Wiseman
7 Verizon Communications/Lowell McAdam
8 3M/Inge Thulin
9 P&G/David Taylor
10 Dow Chemical/Andrew Liveris
11 Owens Corning/Michael Thaman
12 Lafargeholcim/Eric Olsen
13 Fluor/David Seaton
14 Wipro/T. K. Kurien
15 Southwest Airlines/Gary Kelly
16 Ecolab/Douglas Baker, Jr.
17 Stanley Black & Decker/John Lundgren
18 The Cooper Companies/Robert Weiss
19 Sprint/Marcelo Claure
20 Hormel Foods/Jeffrey Ettinger
21 Accenture/Pierre Nanterme
22 Cardinal Health/George Barrett
23 Bristow Group/Jonathan Baliff
24 Nielsen/Mitch Barns
25 Maxim Integrated/Tunc Doluca
26 DENTSPLY International/Bret Wise
27 Coca-Cola Enterprises/John Brock
28 Paychex/Martin Mucci
29 HNI/Stan Askren
30 Inter RAO/Anatoly Gavrilenko
31 Huntington Bancshares/Stephen Steinour
32 Harman/Dinesh Paliwal
33 Hyatt Hotels/Mark Hoplamazian
34 Konecranes/Panu Routila
35 ArcBest/Judy McReynolds
36 Synovus/Kessel Stelling, Jr.
37 Shoppers Drug Mart/Dominic Pilla
38 Aon/Gregory Case
39 Xerox/Ursula Burns
40 Arthur J. Gallagher / J. Patrick
Forbes’ list is unique in that they consulted recruiters for top companies and they explain why this perspective is different: “1) their job is to work with boards, CEOs, and CHROs to understand the skills needed in C-level marketing roles, and 2) they understand and can compare the training and development culture that exists across firms and industries… Executive recruiters have a birds-eye-view and can compare companies across industries; this provides us with a unique vantage point from which to identify the companies that develop the top C-level marketing leaders.”
They go on to mention that the survey includes responses of executive recruiters across 19 different firms of all sizes. Their list is as follows:
1. Procter & Gamble
2. Pepsico
3. Coca-Cola
4. Unilever
5. General Mills
6. KraftHeinz
7. American Express
8. Apple
9. Starbucks
10. Johnson & Johnson
11. Nestle
12. Nike
13. Amazon
14. Clorox
15. Yum! Brands Inc.
They also point out that P&G lead by a large margin over Pepsico for first place by more than half of recruiters, with survey respondents marking that: “Procter and Gamble’s “systematic and disciplined” P&L training, their emphasis on holding marketers accountable for total business results, and the firm’s track record for developing successful C-level leaders puts them at the top of the list.
The article goes on to talk about why emerging tech companies or huge social media companies such as Facebook or Twitter aren’t included on the list and the list consists mostly of companies with a long track record or history of business. They mentioned that: “One recruiter suggested that while emerging tech firms, such as Google and Facebook show promise, they haven’t yet demonstrated a consistent ability to develop marketing talent internally, versus bringing it in from other industries.”
And so for the recruiters, it remains to be seen whether or not they can sustain the development of top talent. You can find more information here about how exactly the recruiters rank the organizations they include in their list and how they determined who makes the top list.
Finally, I compared these lists with Hay Group and their 2014 List of Best Companies for Leadership. The leading companies who make the top of their list of 20 include companies who “take a determined and disciplined approach to help leaders develop and rise within their orgainzations.”
They found that 90 percent of the Top 20 companies “use a formal talent review and planning process to fill leadership positions” and that 93 percent “of companies identify individuals as high-potentials for future leadership roles.” Lastly, they found that 84 percent “of companies actively manage a pool of successors for mission critical roles.” In terms of their methodology for determining which companies make the list, they are unique in that they survey the employees of the companies directly. However, their list is unique in that it is a global ranking and doesn’t necessarily represent American companies only.
Their list is as follows:
1. Procter & Gamble
2. GE
3. Coca-Cola
4. IBM
5. Unilever
6. Intel
7. McDonald’s
8. Samsung
9. 3M
10. Hewlett-Packard
11. Pepsico
12. Toyota
13. Accenture
14. Siemens
15. Telfonica
16. BASF
17. Johnson & Johnson
18. Citigroup
19. IKEA
20. Pfizer
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
In summary, there is some crossover when looking at the rankings within the top 5 and through this we can determine that apart from the companies you already mention in your query, Coca-Cola, IBM and General Mills are some large companies that make the list.
I hope these lists that I have compiled here for you give you some insight into some top companies that develop leaders and some context about how they go about developing and finding these leaders within their companies.
Thank you again for choosing Wonder for your research and if there is anything else we can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask.