Ultimate success cannot be engineered, argues author Simon Sinek, it derives from a team collectively knowing why they get up and go to work every day. Distinguishing between “leaders” in a position of authority and “those that lead,” Sinek revealed people follow the latter not because they have to, but because they want to—for their own sake. Only then can a team be inspired to deliver maximum effort and achieve the impossible.
For the fifth year in a row, Fortune partnered with Indiggo to publish the ROL100®, a unique ranking that captures the ReturnOnLeadership® of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500.
This ReturnOnLeadership® (ROL®) metric evaluates and quantifies key fundamentals previously not measured that are vital to mitigate risk and improve the chances for success when it matters most.
“We know how challenging it continues to be for leaders to navigate today’s turbulent world. Each year we hear from CEOs and other executives that value the external measure of their corporate leadership performance,” Seth Verry, Indiggo’s Chief Research Officer, tells Fortune.
To calculate the ROL100 Ranking, Indiggo draws on publicly available information to provide an industry agnostic “outside-in” view of Return On Leadership. Since some criteria is inherently qualitative in nature, it applies artificial intelligence to ensure consistency and objectivity when assessing its comprehensive data set.
Big picture
Purpose-driven leadership is strongly linked to business success. Although the ROL100 ranking does not directly use financial metrics like stock performance to calculate the ranking, companies at the top of the list consistently outperform those ranked lower in key areas such as revenue, profit, and growth. We’re seeing this correlation year after year.
The numbers to know
No. 1 … Microsoft retook the top spot from Nvidia. It was followed by Nvidia (No. 2), Delta Air Lines (No. 3), Alphabet (No. 4), and Eli Lilly and Company (No. 5).
$180,000 … the median EBITDA per employee of companies in the top 25 of the ROL100. By comparison, the median EBITDA of companies in the bottom 25 of the ranking is $44,000.
+8.3% … the median three-year revenue growth of companies in the top 25 of the ROL100. The median three-year revenue growth of companies in the bottom 25 of the ranking is +5.1%, by comparison.
A few deeper takeaways
Microsoft edges out Nvidia—barely.
This year, Microsoft has reclaimed the No. 1 spot on the ROL100 from Nvidia, though both companies continue to lead the field when it comes to Corporate America’s best leaders.
Microsoft’s return to the top reflects its consistent strength in driving strategic clarity, fostering leadership alignment, and executing with focused discipline across its sprawling business. Under CEO Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft has excelled in cultivating a growth mindset culture and encouraging innovation while maintaining operational excellence. The company’s clear vision for cloud computing, AI integration, and enterprise solutions keeps its leadership team tightly aligned around priorities that drive long-term value.
Meanwhile, Nvidia remains a formidable presence on the list, praised for its visionary leadership and agile execution in the fast-evolving semiconductor and AI chip sector. CEO Jensen Huang continues to guide Nvidia with remarkable strategic clarity, positioning the company as a trailblazer in GPU technology as well as AI training and inference. Nvidia’s leadership team is highly aligned and focused, enabling rapid innovation cycles and market responsiveness that keep it at the forefront of its industry.
Improving its rank by one notch this year to third place is Delta Air Lines, a fact its chief executive attributes to its corporate culture. “For a hundred years, Delta leaders have put our values and our people at the forefront of everything we do,” says CEO Ed Bastian. “So we know from experience that companies that consistently live their values also regularly outperform their competitors.”
Health care and tech sit at the top.
In the three previous ROL100 rankings, the health care industry consistently had the highest number of companies in the top 25.
Last year, however, the technology sector surged ahead to claim the top spot.
For the 2025 list, it was a tie: Both information technology and health care each represented 24% of the companies in the top 25.
Forward-thinking leadership delivers real results.
The correlation between financial success and a high ranking on ReturnOnLeadership is so strong that S&P Dow Jones Indices, a subsidiary of S&P Global, recently added a dedicated product for investors to track companies on Indiggo’s list.
Over the past five years, Indiggo’s ReturnOnLeadership Index (+109%) has outpaced both the S&P 500 (+91%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+64%).
“This reinforces what we all know: how critical the leadership factor is to stock market performance,” Janeen Gelbart, CEO of Indiggo, tells Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
