Glassdoor.com Releases List of Top 25 Rated CEOs for Q3, According to Employees

SAUSALITO, CA--(Marketwire - October 21, 2009) - While approval ratings are commonplace for most politicians, it's also becoming an important measure for CEOs courtesy of Glassdoor.com, a career website that supports greater workplace transparency where employees and jobseekers can review and rate companies, CEOs, job interviews, and disclose their salaries and total compensation packages.

While the majority of CEOs on the highest rated list have better approval ratings than President Obama's current 50% in the latest Gallup poll (as of 10/20/09), 20 out of the total 25 CEOs had their respective approval ratings decline since last quarter. Coming out in the top spot for the third consecutive quarter is General Mills' Ken Powell (96%), followed by Edward Zore of Northwestern Mutual (90%), Steve Jobs of Apple (90%), Eric Schmidt of Google (87%), and A.G. Lafley at Procter & Gamble (87%).

"Employees present a valuable barometer on the inner workings of companies, particularly in times like these. Glassdoor provides a constructive outlet to share their observations, and observe the sentiment and opinions of others within their company and industry," said Robert Hohman, co-founder and CEO of Glassdoor.com. "Glassdoor is fast becoming more than just a resource for employees and jobseekers, as company data like this is proving useful to investors, customers, procurement officers and even sales teams. After all, whether the employee base is satisfied or unsatisfied can severely impact service levels and productivity."

The complete list is as follows:

Highest Rated CEOs w/ 50 or more reviews as of October 1, 2009


                                           Approval Disap- Approval
                                            Rating  proval  Rating  Change
Rank         Company             CEO        as of   Rating  as of     in
                                           10/1/09  as of   7/1/09 Quarters
                                                   10/1/09

----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   1   General Mills        Ken Powell        96%      3%     97%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   2   Northwestern Mutual  Edward J. Zore    90%      3%     93%      -3
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   3   Apple                Steve Jobs        90%      4%     91%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   4   Google               Eric E. Schmidt   87%      4%     88%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   5   Procter & Gamble     A.G. Lafley       87%      4%     87%       0
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
                            Lloyd C.
   6   Goldman Sachs        Blankfein         86%      3%     87%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   7   FactSet              Philip A. Hadley  85%      4%     86%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   8   CareerBuilder        Matt Ferguson     82%      7%     82%       0
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
   9   NIKE                 Mark G. Parker    79%      8%     85%      -6
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  10   Chevron              Dave O'Reilly     79%     11%     78%       1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
                            Shantanu
  11   Adobe                Narayen           78%     11%     78%       0
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  12   Continental Airlines Larry Kellner     77%     10%     80%      -3
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  13   Netflix              Reed Hastings     76%     15%     91%     -15
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  14   USAA                 Joe Robles Jr.    75%     12%     79%      -4
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  15   Caterpillar          Jim Owens         75%     10%     76%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
                            Bill
  16   Marriott             Marriott Jr.      75%     15%     74%       1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  17   Costco Wholesale     Jim Sinegal       74%     12%     73%       1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  18   Disney               Bob Iger          74%     10%     78%      -4
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  19   Edward Jones         Jim Weddle        74%     10%     76%      -2
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  20   Schlumberger         Andrew Gould      74%     10%     77%      -3
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
                            John L.
  21   Stanford University  Hennessy          73%      7%     77%      -4
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  22   salesforce.com       Marc Benioff      73%     12%     74%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
  23   Ernst & Young Global Jim Turley        73%      8%     74%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
                            Mark B.
  24   Citrix Systems       Templeton         72%     16%     73%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------
                            James J.
  25   National Instruments Truchard          72%      3%     73%      -1
----   -------------------- --------------- ------  ------  ------  -------

Glassdoor has been monitoring CEO approval -- and disapproval -- ratings since the company launched in 2008, providing insight on how the chief executives at national and multi-national companies are viewed by the people who regularly walk the halls -- the employees. The Glassdoor CEO approval ratings are calculated the same way political approval ratings are: by simply asking employees if they approve or disapprove of the job the CEO is doing. For the chief executives of reviewed companies to be considered, they must have a minimum of 50 reviews. The current approval rating and disapproval ratings for each CEO can be viewed at any time on Glassdoor.com from the company review profile page. To date, Glassdoor has collected more than 280,000 reviews and salary reports for more than 30,000 companies in 100 countries. Access to Glassdoor.com data is free provided users anonymously contribute information and perspectives about their own jobs.

More detailed CEO ratings analysis that includes a look at how approval ratings can vary by employee work location can be found on the Glassdoor.com blog.

NOTE TO EDITORS/REPORTERS/BLOGGERS: Glassdoor analysts are available to run custom queries and reports on data for specific companies and/or sectors. If you would be interested in a custom report on CEO performance, company ratings, insights into company or interview reviews, or details into compensation packages for specific job or specific companies, please email pr[at]glassdoor[dot]com.

About Glassdoor.com

Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community where anyone can find and anonymously share real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs and job interviews for specific employers -- for free. Designed to deliver greater transparency around our work life, Glassdoor enables employees, job seekers, employers and recruiters to simultaneously see -- for the first time -- unedited employee opinions about a company's work environment along with details of pay, benefits and CEO approval ratings along with detailed accounts and questions about the interview and hiring process. Glassdoor was founded in 2007 and launched its public beta in June 2008. Headquartered in Sausalito, Calif. Glassdoor has received $9.5 million from Benchmark Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures, which followed initial seed investment from Glassdoor co-founders Rich Barton, Robert Hohman and Tim Besse.