The CEO Echo | December 2021 Rankings | Categories: Communication, Social, Responsibility & Investor Excellence

As critical figureheads, Chief Executive Officers play a key role in how corporations are perceived by the public, and so it's vital that organizations keep their fingers on the pulse of CEO-focused media.

In collaboration with .companion, a data consultancy and KPI expert, Meltwater presents the 2021 CEO Echo; a monthly media intelligence analysis of CEOs heading up some of the world's largest brands. The ranking leverages Meltwater's media intelligence capabilities and automated analysis by the .companion bot to offer readers highlights and benchmarks across the following areas:

1. Total CEO Digital Footprint
2. CEO Communication Excellence
3. CEO Social Excellence
4. CEO Responsibility Excellence
5. CEO Investor Excellence

Contents

December 2021 CEO Echo rankings

Total Digital Footprint

Communication Excellence

Social Excellence

Responsibility Excellence

Investor Excellence

Source Information

Previous CEO Echo results

December 2021 CEO Echo rankings

35% less CEO mentions

Last month, the .companion CEO metrics bot found 35% fewer CEO mentions than the average of the previous months. Overall, 57% of mentions captured by the CEO Echo were generated by editorial online content, while social media generated 43%. In December, CEO Echo content saw engagement drop by 64%. 51% of all CEO mentions were related to financial news, meaning they simply referred to company figures that are often required to be disclosed by law. In contrast, the context of 49% of mentions was linked to corporate agendas. Overall, the tonality of mentions was equally positive and negative.

Herbert Diess, Volkswagen CEO, dominates with 9% CEO Echo coverage

What role does a CEO play in a company's overall corporate messaging, whether voluntary or involuntary? The CEO Digital Footprint aims to answer this question.

In December, Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen, received the highest amount of media coverage. His share of voice totaled 8.6%, the largest footprint of all top board members. In second place was Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, with 6.8%, and Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, took the third spot with 4.5% share of all mentions. 64% of conversations around Diess' echo were not related to company financials and thus were above average for agenda-driving topics and content. 53% of the Volkswagen CEO's echo came from editorial media and 47% from social media. Content that mentioned Diess generated 38 interactions (clicks, shares, likes) per mention. This shows that audiences are highly engaged and made Diess the 56th most engaged CEO in the ranking. In total, mentions for Herbert Diess were equally positive and negative. We can assume this had a corresponding impact on his overall reputation.

Communication Excellence

OTP Bank's CEO, Sándor Csányi, takes the number 1 spot

Two common goals widely shared by media teams are communicating key messages and building a favorable reputation, both of which rely heavily on editorial mentions. The Communication Excellence ranking analyses and aggregates media volume (removing financial report listings).

Sándor Csányi, CEO of OTP Bank, was ranked first in December. Outside of the paywall, 84% of his digital echo discussed the CEO in stories beyond financial figures. Stories generated 281 engagements per mention, signifying readers are highly interested. Furthermore, coverage was as much positive as it was negative. As a result, the response to OTP Bank's CEO received 5.5 points. Ferran Soriano, CEO of City Football Group came in second place with a score of 3.1, and Alessandro Profumo, CEO of Leonardo, took third place with a Communication Excellence score of 3.1 points.

Social Excellence

Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony's CEO, wins first place

These days, simply having a social media profile is not enough. If you want to have an impact on opinion leaders outside of editorial offices, or on consumers and digital elites who are not easily accessible through the mass media, you have to be mentioned frequently on social media. The Social Excellence Index answers whether a company's attempts at this have been successful.

Last month, Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony, topped the ranking with a Social Excellence score of 6.1 points. 65% of the conversation came from social media and his engagement was high with 13 interactions per mention. Moreover, the sentiment of his mentions were 13% positive, meaning Yoshida was well ahead of runners-up Detlef Trefzger, CEO of Kühne + Nagel, with 4.4 points and Jens Henriksson, CEO of Swedbank, who placed third with 3.1 points.

Responsibility Excellence

Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, CEO of Salzgier, has the highest number of mentions surrounding social responsibility

The .companion metrics bot also determines whether CEOs appear in the digital media as leaders in the context of the UN's sustainable development goals, e.g. in the context of social responsibility or climate and environmental protection. Our Responsibility Index shows how well this has been achieved. For this index, the metrics bot only analyses mentions related to sustainability -related topics.

In December, Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, CEO of Salzgier, saluted us from first place in the responsibility ranking, with 91% of Salzgier CEOs' mentions related to social responsibility topics. His engagement rate was 730 which can be considered highly engaged. The tonality of media conversations was as much positive as negative. Overall, Fuhrmann's Responsibility Index came to 12.1 points. Chrisan Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank, followed in second place with 2.9 points, and Rolf Eberhard Buch, CEO of Vonovia, in third place with 2.8 points.

Investor Excellence

Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, CEO of Salzgier, takes the number 1 spot for the financial echo

CEO mentions in the context of balance sheet figures offer little scope for setting content-related agendas but are crucial for building investor confidence. In this environment, the metrics bot determines which CEOs were mentioned from a financial standpoint, forming an index for investor communication.

In December, the .companion metrics bot identified Salzgier's CEO, Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, as the top communicator for investors after he achieved 8.8 points. 91% of his mentions were related to the financial environment, which is 1.6 times this month's average. His readership was highly interested, indicated by an engagement rate of 729.9, and he experienced as many positive as negative comments. He is followed in second and third place by Carsten Knobel, CEO of Henkel, with 4.3 points, and Elisabeth Stadler, CEO of Vienna Insurance Group (3.9 points).

• Media conversations were tracked and analyzed globally with the help of the market-leading monitoring tool, Meltwater
• All content is in German and/or English and publicly accessible across websites, forums, and social media
• The text and content of the CEO Echo are generated automatically by the .companion metrics bot
• All Excellence index values are based on three criteria:
  1. How often the respective CEO is mentioned in a certain context
  2. How many of those mentions were positive
  3. How many engagements did those posts and articles received
• While it is necessary to have an above-average share of mentions in the respective category it's still possible to score high on a certain index despite one of the sub-criteria receiving results that are somewhat sub-par

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Previous CEO Echo results