Carlos Brito named one of Barron’s top 30 CEOs
Mr Brito will be pleased. The business magazine Barron’s has named him one of the top 30 CEOs in the world among such notables as the investor Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs (Apple), Peter Löscher (Siemens) and Michael O’Leary (Ryanair). While 18 of the 30 CEOs run U.S.-based outfits, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Japan and several other countries are also represented.
The list was published at the end of March 2011.
It’s the first time Mr Brito is on that list. Barron’s says that “in just six years Carlos Brito has turned a South American brewer into the world’s largest beer concern, AB-InBev. He runs it with a lean, flat management structure, with few perks and meritocratic promotion practices that pay little attention to seniority. He also encourages employees to use their imaginations. ‘Dreaming big or small takes the same amount of energy,’ he says.”
Beer Marketer’s Insights, in a delightfully irreverent comment, wrote that they were not sure if many U.S. distributors will agree. “Lots of them find AB in the U.S. increasingly dysfunctional with local employees fearful and/or unable to make decisions, while centralised AB-InBev management comes up with decisions inappropriate for local markets.” But, they concluded, to make it on to Barron’s list was quite an honour for Mr Brito.
