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Nooyi, Ramani Ayer among best US CEOs

Praising them for "being forthright and transparent with shareholders", a magazine has named three India-origin chief executives-- Indra Nooyi, Francisco D'Souza and Ramani Ayer among the best CEOs in the US.

Soft drinks maker PepsiCo's Nooyi, IT services major Cognizant Technology Solutions' D'Souza and insurance entity Hartford Financial Services' Ramani Ayer have made the cut in the list of '2009 America's Best CEOs' compiled by US-based Institutional Investor magazine.

According to the publication, these top-ranked CEOs score high marks for "being forthright and transparent with shareholders and smart with their companies' balance sheets. "They also earn high praise for keeping their companies on course..."

Text: PTI

Nooyi, Ramani Ayer among best US CEOs

Meanwhile, Ramani Ayer, who features at the third position in the ranking of CEOs in the "Insurance/Life" sector, is ahead of Lincoln National Corp's Dennis Glass (4) and John Strangfeld Jr (5) of Prudential Financial. In that league, Aflac's Daniel Amos is at the top followed by C Robert Henrikson of MetLife.

More than 900 buy-side investment professionals at over 460 institutions with combined assets of $ 6.6 trillion in US equities, were surveyed to prepare the list. The list has identified the best CEOs in 57 industry sectors.

In the "beverages" segment, Nooyi has cornered the first rank and is followed by arch rival Coca-Cola's Muhtar Kent at the second position.

Nooyi, Ramani Ayer among best US CEOs

Francisco D'Souza is placed at the third spot in the "Computer Services & IT Consulting" segment. In that area, Accenture's William Green is on the top position while Automatic Data Processing's (ADP) Gary Butler is ranked second.

Nooyi, Ramani Ayer among best US CEOs

Other prominent names in the list include Google's Eric Schmidt, Microsoft chief Steven Ballmer, Lawrence Ellison of Oracle Corp, News Corp's Keith (Rupert) Murdoch and General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt.

"We asked these individuals to name the best US CEOs in the sectors in which they invest. Votes were weighted, with first place votes counting more than second place votes, and so on, to produce a score for each executive that we used to compile the rankings," the publication said.