Nigel Wilson: Legal & General Group CEO

British Nigel Wilson was born on November 17, 1956. He earned his economics degree from the University of Warwick. Nigel holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

He has held a number of senior positions in companies he worked for before becoming the CEO of insurance company Legal & General Group. He became the CEO on June 30, 2012, succeeding Tim Breedon. In 2009, Nigel joined Legal & General as Group Financial Officer and played a leading role in charting the insurance company through the financial crisis. 

Prior to Legal & General, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. where his clients included BP, Citibank, Cadbury’s, Santander, Kingfisher, Courtaulds, Whitbread and Globe Investment Trust. Nigel was Managing Director at Stanhope Properties, Head of Corporate Finance and Group Commercial Director at Dixons Group and Chief Executive, Corporate at Guinness Peat Aviation. 

In 1996, he was appointed Group Finance Director of Viridian Group, the Irish energy firm, helping to build the company’s Viridian Capital portfolio. This work would propel him to become Managing Director of Viridian Capital in 2000. 

Chung-Mou Chang: Taiwan Semiconductor Chairman

Chung-Mou “Morris” Chang was born on July 10, 1931, in Ningbo, Zhejiang province. Morris at first wanted to be a writer, but his father thought he should try something else. He went to the US in 1949 to study at Harvard University. Later, Morris transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1952. The following year he received his Masters of Science in mechanical engineering from the same university. 

In 1958, Morris joined Texas Instruments as an engineering manager. In 1964, he earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. 

Morris spent 25 years at Texas Instruments and rose through the corporate ladder and eventually became the senior vice president in charge of the company’s global semiconductor business. In 1984 he left Texas Instrument then joined General Instrument Corporation as president. A year later the Taiwanese government recruited him to take over as president of its Industrial Technology Research Institute. 

Morris was put in charge of developing Taiwan’s emerging semiconductor industry. He came to the realization that electronic firms, in order to cut cost would increasingly need to outsource. So Morris came up with the idea of putting up a company that would work under contract to meet the design needs of such firms by making chips and other electronic devices. 

He founded, with the help of the Taiwanese government, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and became its first CEO. Morris would go on to make TSMC into one of the most profitable chip makers in the world. TSMC, by 1999 had among its clients, Motorola, Siemens AG, and Texas Instruments and was hitting annual sales of $1.5 billion. 

Morris became a leading proponent of e-commerce, on the internet he placed a “technology library” which enabled users to access information on the products and designs of  TSMC. 

Morris did in fact find time to engage in his first love of writing. He wrote, “The Autobiography of Morris C.M. Chang-Volume I (1931-1964) which was published in 1998. 

Dan Amos: Aflac Chairman & CEO

Daniel Paul “Dan” Amos was born on August 13, 1951, in Pensacola, Florida. His father co-founded Aflac and Dan joined the company in 1973. Working in sales for 10 years, he was the company’s top sales person. He was promoted to president of Aflac in 1983, chief operating officer, chief executive officer of Aflac Incorporated in 1992 and chairman in 2001. 

Aflac is a huge company insuring more than 50 million people worldwide. The firm is the leading provider of individual insurance policies offered in the worksite in the United States. It is also the largest life insurer in Japan in terms of individual policies in force. 

Under Dan’s watch, Aflac’s revenues has grown from $2.7 billion in 1990 to $23.9 billion as of December 31, 2013. He has set the company on a path of being on the list of Fortunes’ Most Admired Companies every year since 2001. Aflac has been on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for list for 16 consecutive years.

Dan has been cited as one of America’s Best CEOs by Institutional Investor magazine five times. 

Steve Easterbrook: McDonald’s CEO

British Stephen J. “Steve” Easterbrook was born in 1967 and grew up in Watford. He was educated at Watford Grammar School for Boys. Steve earned a natural sciences degree at St. Chad’s College, Durham University and played cricket. 

After graduating from university he trained as an accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Steve joined McDonald’s in 1993 as a financial reporting manager in London. He also spent 18 months at “Hamburger University," the McDonald’s corporate training academy near Chicago. 

After working in numerous roles in operation and finance he was named vice president for the UK’s southern region in 2001. He was promoted head of McDonald’s UK in 2006. Steve became in-charge of more than 1,200 outlets and an estimated £35 million marketing budget. In this role he implemented a major restaurant design, emphasized employee training, and adding health options to the menu which resulted in turning around the business in the region.

In 2010 Steve was named president of McDonald’s Europe, overseeing 7,000 restaurants in 39 countries. Initially he had been given the newly created role of global chief brand officer. McDonald’s made a U-turn on the decision after just two months and moved Steve back to London to look after its European business. 

Some are of the opinion that this situation made Steve leave McDonald’s in 2011. He landed a new job as chief executive of UK restaurant chain PizzaExpress. He was responsible for growing the number of outlets from 400 to around 600. It was a short stint as he left and became head of Wagamama, the noodle chain, in 2012. 

Steve returned to McDonald’s in 2013, this time finally taking up the global chief brand officer role permanently at the company’s headquarters in Illinois. Under his term the company began experimenting with more upmarket restaurants in Australia and made dramatic changes to its menu in the US. 

Steve became CEO of McDonald’s on March 1, 2015. He faces a major challenge as the company has been experiencing a continuous declining in sales. McDonald’s sees him as the man who can get the job done. 

John Koraleski: Union Pacific Chairman and CEO

John Koraleski is a product of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, obtaining both his bachelor’s and master’s degree in business administration from the said university. In 1972, John joined the railroad, and over the course of his career held various position at Union Pacific. 

Among others he has held positions in the Administrative and Real Estate Departments. John was the controller at Union Pacific Corporation from August 1998 to March 1999. He also served as the executive vice president of Finance and Information Technology of Union Pacific Railroad. John was the executive vice president of Marketing and Sales from March 1999 to March 2012. 

He was named president and chief executive officer of Union Pacific Corporation on March 2012. John was elected chairman on March 2014, and was named executive chairman of the board of directors on February 5, 2015.

When he assumed the position of CEO in March 2012, the company was experiencing tough times. This was due to the decline in coal shipments. Coal is a staple of Union Pacific. He predicted better times ahead which turned out to be right but also admits there are future challenges that the company has to address. 

Pascal Soriot: AstraZeneca CEO

Pascal Soriot was born in France on May 23,1959. He holds a doctor of veterinary medicine from École Nationale Vétérinaire d’Alfort, Maisons-Alfort. Pascal later earned an MBA from HEC, Paris. 

He started his career in the pharmaceutical industry in 1986, joining Roussel Uclaf. This was previously the second largest pharmaceutical company in France until 1997 when it was purchased by Hoechst AG. Pascal joined the company as a salesman and was stationed in Australia. He was promoted in 1996 to General Manager of Hoechst Marion Roussel in Australia, then in April 1997 moved to Tokyo, Japan. 

Pascal joined Aventis in America in 2000. He was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Aventis USA in 2002. The company became Sanofi Aventis USA in 2004. Next he moved to Roche in 2006. Pascal became the Chief Executive of Roche subsidiary Genentech from April 2009 to 2010. After which he rejoined Roche Pharma AG as Chief Operating Officer. Pascal held this position until September 2012. 

He was named as the new Chief Executive of AstraZeneca, the world’s fifth largest pharmaceutical company on August 28, 2012. He took up the position on October 1, 2012, he was also elected Director the same year. 

Pascal took over the company when it was in bad shape. Profits fell 31 percent between the second and third quarters of 2012. One of the main reasons for the decline was the expiration of a number of its pharmaceutical patents, including Crestor (a treatment for cholesterol) and Nexium (a heartburn remedy) and there was no new products to replace them. For a number of years AstraZeneca had failed to invest in R&D and this was something that Pascal needed to immediately address. 

He had to take the painful step of lower the workforce by around 2,300 employees who were  mostly in the production lines. He relocated the company’s headquarters to its R&D hub in Cambridge while shutting down another R&D facility. Pascal focused on R&D as well. 

By April 2014, AstraZeneca was healthy enough to refuse a €87 billion takeover bid from Pfizer. 

Victor Dodig: CIBC President & CEO

Victor Dodig holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto. He earned an MBA from Harvard University and was a Baker Scholar. Victor also holds a Diploma from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France. 

Among his various professional positions was as management consultant with McKinsey and Company from 1994 to 1997. He also worked at Kraft General Foods Inc. At one point he was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Canada. 

Before Victor joined Canada Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) he was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in Canada for UBS Global Asset Management. In 2005 he joined CIBC as Executive Vice-President, CIBC Wealth Management. 

Victor was appointed Executive Vice-President, Retail Distribution in 2007. In this position  he led the bank’s retail banking distribution and sales team. In 2007, Victor was named Group Head, Wealth Management, being responsible for the bank’s brokerage, private wealth, and asset management businesses in Canada and the US.

In September 2014, Victor became head of CIBC, being appointed President and Chief Executive Officer and member of CIBC’s Board of Directors.