Wall Street’s 3 Most Valuable CEOs

Bigwigs in corner offices have been on the move in recent weeks. In the
"tearful goodbye" category, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) announced that its iconic
founder Steve Jobs is stepping down from his CEO role. In the "don't let the
door hit you on the way out" category, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO ) canned CEO Carol
Bartz (via telephone, no less) with a year left on her contract. In "laughing
all the way to the bank" news, Robert Kelly, CEO of Bank of New York Mellon
(NYSE: BK ), resigned in August over "differences in approach" and could get
severance that approaches $37 million . Even Regis Philbin said recently he will
be retiring. Leadership vaccums seem to be the order of the day. So just how
important is good management and a strong CEO? And who are some of the best in
the business especially now that Silicon Valley lion Steve Jobs is departing
for good? Here are three winning CEOs that have led their companies to
extraordinary success in recent years and still are playing an active role in
the future. What's more, these publicly traded stocks have all outperformed
Apple since guru Steve Jobs returned in 1997 so they have delivered stunning
gains to shareholders as well as building their corporate legacy. Here are three
of Wall Street's most valuable CEOs: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Name this stock:
This tech giant is one of the biggest names in technology and has
single-handedly redefined an entire industry. Thanks to its founder and current
CEO, shares are up about 12,500% since 1997. Did you guess Apple? You're
wrong. While all those earlier statements apply, Apple stock is "only" up
8,800% since 1997. The company I'm talking about is Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ),
led by Jeff Bezos. Bezos deserves as much of the spotlight as Steve Jobs. After
all, the Amazon honcho was witness to the birth of e-commerce as we know it. And
lest our grandchildren assume Apple is responsible for every tech innovation,
the Kindle was here in 2007 just a few months after the iPhone was born and
before the iPad was launched or the viability of "e-books" was a foregone
conclusion. Just how influential is Amazon? According to comScore , in June
2011, Amazon was visited by 282 million people, or 20.4% of the worlds online
population. Think about that: 1 in 5 folks with an Internet connection visit the
site each month. Bezos isn't done, either, focusing on upgrading Amazon Prime
to make it a streaming video destination akin to Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX ) and
redesigning its homepage for the first time in a decade to maximize engagement
(and sales, of course). Amazon owes much of its past success to founder and
leader Jeff Bezos, and he continues to play a part in its future growth.