Which CEOs Have Been Naughty or Nice According to Their Employees?
Yes, that’s right. It’s that time of year where we’re making our list and checking it twice trying to find out which CEO’s rated on Glassdoor.com have been naughty or nice in the eyes of their employees this year.
Genentech’s Art Levinson comes in as the #1 rated CEO (with at least 50 employees) with a 92% approval rating while and Office Depot‘s Steve Odland is the least popular CEO with the highest disapproval rating of 80%.
NICE: Coming in at second place after Art Levinson is Apple’s Steve Jobs with a 90% approval rating. And despite a volatile year, four out of five Goldman Sachs’ employees approve of the job Lloyd Blankfein is doing.
Here are just a few of the reasons Art Levinson gets ranked so highly in Glassdoor.com reviews:
| Nice CEOs | |||
| Company | Company Rating | CEO | CEO Approval Rating (%) |
| Genentech | 3.8 | Art Levinson | 93 |
| Apple | 3.8 | Steve Jobs | 90 |
| Goldman Sachs | 3.8 | Lloyd C. Blankfein | 88 |
| 4.0 | Eric E. Schmidt | 88 | |
| Procter & Gamble | 4.0 | A.G. Lafley | 88 |
| McKinsey & Company | 4.0 | Ian Davis | 86 |
| American Express | 3.6 | Ken Chenault | 80 |
| NVIDIA | 3.4 | Jen-Hsun Huang | 80 |
| Adobe | 4.2 | Shantanu Narayen | 79 |
| NetApp | 3.9 | Dan Warmenhoven | 78 |
NAUGHTY: A Department Manager at Office Depot in Dallas, Texas writes “Fire Odland and kill ridiculous 
programs like ones listed above. Please, Please, Please give this company back to its workers. The corporate office in Delray Beach, FL is asleep at the wheel and frankly incompetent. Maybe If some of them would listen to or maybe even spend a few hours in a store they would understand their own business a little better. This company will fail If you do not get back to basics! Cheap no hassle prices and fast checkout! NO MORE PROGRAMS PLEASE!”
The naughty list is synonymous with our “Watch List” - a term we coined for the CEOs with the highest disapproval ratings (with at least 50 reviews) and are at risk of being ousted. Other CEOs who’ve made the list, include recent additions like CSAA Inter-Insurance Bureau’s James R. Pouliot (62% disapprove), Amgen’s Kevin Sharer (54% disapprove), Sun Microsystems‘ Jonathan Schwartz (50% disapprove) and eBay’s John Donahoe (49% disapprove). RainBird CEO Anthony LaFetra is a “Watch List” veteran who remains a close second, followed by AOL CEO Randy Falco who is the third least popular.
| Naughty CEOs | ||||
| Company | Company Rating | CEO | CEO Approval Rating (%) |
CEO Disapproval Rating (%) |
| Office Depot | 2.2 | Steve Odland | 4 | 80 |
| Rain Bird | 2.1 | Anthony LaFetra | 9 | 75 |
| AOL | 2.7 | Randy Falco | 13 | 68 |
| Motorola | 2.6 | Greg Brown | 10 | 66 |
| EDS | 2.6 | Ron Rittenmeyer | 12 | 65 |
| CSAA Inter-Insurance Bureau | 2.2 | James R. Pouliot | 12 | 62 |
| Amgen | 3.2 | Kevin W. Sharer | 15 | 54 |
| Affiliated Computer Services | 2.4 | Lynn R. Blodgett | 10 | 53 |
| Sun Microsystems | 3.2 | Jonathan I. Schwartz | 26 | 50 |
| eBay | 2.8 | John J. Donahoe | 20 | 49 |
In looking back on our Watch List members this year, a few received their own pink slips. Any opinions which CEO on the “naughty” list is next? Anyone else who should be?
*CEO Approval Ratings are based on more than 50 employee reviews
Filed under: CEO Watch List
The Challenge with Rain Bird is Mr. La Fetra and his family are the owners, since it is privately held. He is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Dan Warmenhoven is a great leader. I’ve enjoyed working with him for more than 14 years. He’s one of the people that makes NetApp a cool place to work.
What, no mention of Bill Gates? Or Larry Ellison?
Monsanto’s Hugh Grant for menace to the world.
EDS is run by a bunch of crooks.
John Donahoe will be next.
To me, he comes off as a guy who seems to be nice, but, very dumb. He was brought on board to be a fall guy. Like any good flunky, he will do whatever the company asks, and later wonder what happened.
John Donahoe has taken the fall as the guy who came up with all the changes that are going at ebay. They weren’t his ideas. But, he is taking the heat.
I believe ebay has a sinister plan, and it has been in the works for a couple years now. All indications are EBay was no longer a solid investment opportunity. No room for growth analysts shouted last year. So, I believe ebay hatched this crazy idea to reorganize the company. One of two things would happen:
1. It would be a huge success, and ebay would now have room for growth.
2. It would be a huge failure, and ebay would by default have plenty of room for growth.
If it succeeds, everyone, including the fallguy (Donahoe) is happy. If it fails, I suspect ebay fires Donahoe, and brings in a new CEO (or brings back Whitman) and promises to bring things back to “normal”, hoping to bring back those who have left ebay. But, has ebay gone too far this time? And, by paying to manipulate the listings, and stocks just makes me wonder, “Why is ebay willing to pay millions, rather than admit they screwed up?”
Donahoe has taken a friendly onlline trading place and turned it into a hostile field. He needs to go fast!
Disney’s middle chiefs are rotted corrupt, handing over favors to unprepared people, contractors, suppliers, you name it they will probably sell it to you, costing investors and employees money. if you are disney’s people who care look closer it’s closer than you think, if you are the crooked ones, karma will bite you in the …. well you get the idea thanks
DHL is the worst employer in US history. Out of the 8000 job losses in the US, DHL fails to include Teamsters and ICs. The job loss is going to be over 30,000. Over 2200 alone in NY NJ CT. They devastated the economy in Wilmington Ohio. Which includes ABX and DHL employees which both provided air, sorting and logistics. DPWN devastated to US companies in less than 5 years, Airborne Express and formally US owned DHL.
Bahumbug to
James R. Pouliot CEO CSAA.
They say they are taking the what usto be non profit company to profit and never told a sole. now that they are for profit. CSAA in my opinion has become a money hungry greedy company that does not care for its employees. I worked for CSAA for 26 years myself and several others 20- 30 year employees were cut loose. Its better to do buisness in Oklahoma or Arizona (cheaper) and to have Arize agents take our incoming calls, we dont have to pay them benifits and we can cut salary’s. What once was a great company to work for became a greedy money hungry pit. All members will soon suffer from poor service levels and under paid staff. In time they will learn from there mistakes.
I was only employed with CSAA for just under 5yrs. However, have been a roadservice member for 31 years. If I wasn’t well versed in the areas I travel, I would have very serious concerns about service. Inexperience and poor training programs abound now. In the long run, “you get what you pay for” is an old adage, but quite true.
I only wish well to CSAA for I understand the “bottom line” theory. I just hope all of us can find new jobs with good companies.
Despite the fact that Sun Microsystem is going to downsize about 18% of it’s employees, What really makes me mad is that Jonathan Schwartz will ALWAYS send some stupid e-mail saying “You are great! We are growing! Everything is perfect!” and later I’ll find out that our stocks value is next to nothing or that they will layoff again. We are not stupid, please be honest to us!
Also, They take about 2 months to complete a RIF process. For the love of God, you guys have no freaking sensibility at all?
OUCH!!!
Their right on with the #1 Naughty. SteveO single handedly destroyed the company formerly known as OD. And there is no repairing it at this point. Stick a fork in them. Yet, he still has a job?
I’ve worked at Genentech for nearly 14 years. I was here when the previous CEO, Kirk Raab, was asked to leave by the board, and the board chose Art Levinson to replace him. Art was a scientist and he brought Genentech out of the stale Pharma mentality that his predecessor had promoted. I felt the wave of change in the company then and still feel the positive effects now. We got back on track and we’ve grown dramatically in that time; we now have a stable of blockbusters and they all make a huge difference in the lives of our patients.
I have changed careers three times in my tenure, growing and developing with each new position, while building upon the knowledge I already have. I know so many people here like me. We believe we are doing good for our patients and that the company is doing good for us.
Art (or Uncle Art, as many of us old timers call him-unofficially) is a perfect example of how a good CEO can build a strong company. I hope he continues to shine in his bright light on Genentech for many years to come.
I have been insured with CSAA for many, many, years. All my family members are still insured, (as of today). We are shopping around for auto, home insurance. So sad to see such a great company go downhill. I’ve always thought that CSAA was a A plus company. I was wrong. Hopefully, all the former employees do find jobs.
Well congrats. DHL, you met your goal, you are finally number 1 at something in the U.S.
AAA CSAA used to treat their insurance agents very well, and paid them very well. I am a former agent for CSAA and they made many promises to me and others that they did not keep. They promised existing customer books of business. Unfortunately, when Pouliot and Downey took over they forgot who was generating the revenue and making the customers happy it was the agents and service people. These are the people they screwed first. Also, the sales managers are far from being capable effective managers as most have never been in sales or had to produce revenue at all. They are good at reports and attending meaningless meetings. I have personally transferred all my familys policies from AAA CSAA to other carriers. The fall of a once great co.
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It’s a good thing Pouliot and Downey don’t have to report to the membership on the cost of their decisions. Over 40 cents on the dollar goes for expenses and they can only think to lay off people. What about Jim’s daily limo rides and Paula’s blind approval of hundreds of millions for a flawed membership system?
Hey, is there a section just for latest news
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I agree with you 99% but wonder if you have really looked at the whole picture. DOn’t mean to be critical just food for thought.
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