Barron's ultimate CEOs -- Apple's Jobs tops the list

A survey from Barron's magazine describes Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs as the "ultimate CEO who matters." This survey identified the upper echelon of CEOs across the globe who have "top notch reputations" in the financial community and who likely would be missed by investors if they unexpectedly left their jobs.

To qualify, CEOs need to have been on the job for at least three years, but Barron's tended to prefer those who had at least five years of experience because it takes time to influence a large company and develop a reputation in the investment world. This survey is not entirely scientific considering Barron's drew on the subjective opinions of its own staff and many prominent investors.

Many of the CEOs who made the list have either founded their companies or have been with them for a decade or longer. Founders include Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS), Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK), and Fred Smith of FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX). It is noted in the article that, "a founder often has intimate business knowledge, commands strong employee loyalty and can resist periodic entreaties from Wall Street for quick fixes to tough problems."

A common theme for all CEOs is that they have all delivered for the shareholders. Nearly all of the companies have stocks that have bested the Standard & Poor's 500 index during the CEOs tenure. One CEO in particular, Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple Inc.), is so valuable to his company that the report notes that "Jobs' departure probably would result in a greater loss of stock-market value than the loss of any other CEO in the world. Jobs might be worth 20 or so points to Apple shares, roughly $16 billion." No wonder Apple is so eager to minimize its CEOs association with the company's option-backdating woes.