Euromoney’s awards for excellence recognize the banks that have best performed under difficult conditions over the past year. But what of the CEOs? Profile is everything but how can one really judge the most influential chiefs of the world’s biggest banks?
Maybe Wikipedia has the answer. What better sign that you’ve truly arrived than your own page on the free encyclopedia that’s written by members of the general public?
But mere presence is not enough. One must have more words than the next man to claim bragging rights. And RBS’s Fred Goodwin is the Wiki king of the bank chiefs, with a storming 1,363 words on his Wiki page. None other breaks the 1,000 mark, and even John Mack’s 865 in second place includes 416 words on insider trading allegations, which takes the sheen off somewhat.
But despite the CEOs of UBS and Credit Suisse having no page at all (Swiss secrecy, anyone?), the men who should be most worried are Deutsche Bank’s Josef Ackermann and Barclays’ John Varley. The two have the unfortunate distinction of being the only CEOs that have employees with a bigger Wiki page. Bob Diamond’s 292 words comfortably beats his boss’s 185, while Ackermann’s 102 is dwarfed by Anshu Jain’s 206.