*By Carlo Versano* *As Cheddar reflects on 2018, we are profiling the most innovative, flamboyant, and often-controversial entrepreneurs and corporate leaders who delivered the year's most memorable moments in business. Of the CEO Class of 2018, who was crowned Biggest Flirt? Class Clown? Most Likely to Succeed? Check [here](https://www.cheddar.com/tags/cheddar-awards) for all the Cheddar Awards and more year-end coverage.* The age of the rock star CEO arguably began with Bill Gates, whose stewardship of Microsoft in the 1980s and 90sー and the personal fortune he amassed ー paved the way for other chief executives to become celebrities in their own right, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk. But in a year of power defined by brashness and unfettered tweeting, it was the CEO who flew under the radar that showed real leadership. Satya Nadella, the current head of Microsoft ($MSFT) but an unknown to many Americans, rose through the ranks at Microsoft before taking over the top spot from Steve Ballmer (another rock star [CEO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14b-C67EXY)) in 2014, becoming only the third chief executive in the company’s history. His leadership style is at odds with a more mainstream image of successful CEOs.He isn’t flamboyant, eccentric, or loathed by a significant portion of the population. And as Nadella’s cohort of top tech CEOs found itself ensnared in scandal, controversy, and disappointment throughout the yearー from [data breaches](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html) and embarrassing [exposés](https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-exposed-user-data-feared-repercussions-of-disclosing-to-public-1539017194) to pot-smoking podcast [appearances](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/tech/elon-musk-joe-rogan/index.html) and Twitter [meltdowns](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776?lang=en) to [bad press](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/backlash-already-mounting-over-amazon-s-choices-hq2-n935666) and [missed targets](https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-stop-disclosing-iphone-ipad-mac-unit-sales-quarter-2018-11)ーNadella quietly steered Microsoft back to a symbolic victory: it became the most [valuable](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/microsoft-and-apple-vie-for-title-of-worlds-largest-company) public company in the world for the first time since 2002, and will likely end the year with the crown. For a man whose name would elicit little more than a shrug from most people, that’s a sleeper success story for the ages. Nadella’s keynote addresses have been compared to [homilies](https://www.zdnet.com/article/satya-nadella-microsofts-first-futurist-ceo/), in which he sermonizes about the future of humanity and the role of technology in the world, instead of product releases. Reporters find him hard to cover, struggling to find the easy headlines. President Trump, who has spent the year vilifying tech’s top CEOs, has notably left Nadella off the list. And in Redmond, where it matters most, the 51-year-old Indian immigrant is beloved. A recent survey commissioned by Comparably, a platform that rates companies based on anonymous employee responses, named Nadella the top [CEO](https://www.comparably.com/blog/best-ceos-2018/) of 2018. He received a score of 82 from employees, beating out the also-popular chiefs of Home Depot ($HD)and Google ($GOOGL) for the top spot. As outlined in a recent Forbes profile, Nadella’s leadership philosophy can best be illustrated by how he sought to acquire Github, which he finally executed in 2018 after years of flirtation. Nadella was in the process of acquiring LinkedIn when he [asked a Microsoft employee](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2018/12/10/exclusive-ceo-interview-satya-nadella-reveals-how-microsoft-got-its-groove-back/#585ec4577acb) about GitHub: “Have we earned their trust?” In an industry built on growth multiples and for a company best known for its voracious appetite for swallowing up competitors, the question indicated that Nadella was a different kind of executive. And in the endー to the surprise of Silicon Valley prognosticators ー Github chose Microsoft over Google; Nadella’s leadership was reportedly a major factor. GitHub is a community of open-source software developers who would have every right to be skeptical of Microsoft's motives. Ballmer once famously called Linux "a cancer," and Microsoft spent years in court with Linux fighting over patents. But the animosity ended under Nadella's reign. He had Microsoft join the Linux Foundation two years ago, paving the way for the GitHub acquisition. Jim Zemlin, the head of the Linux Foundation, [called](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/microsoft-buys-github-the-linux-foundations-reaction/) it “pretty good news for the world of Open Source and we should celebrate Microsoft’s smart move." While Nadella flew under the radar during certain moments, he spoke up in others. When the Trump administration’s child-separation policy exploded into controversy over the summer, Nadella called it “abhorrent” and said Microsoft did not provide services or products for ICE related to the policy. Microsoft employees petitioned Nadella to cancel the contract it did have with ICE, which was mainly for administrative work, according to the company. Nadella has so far not acquiesced to the demand. In carefully choosing his battles, Nadella displayed a quiet, but distinctive leadership style that's a sharp contrast to the way we have come to think of chief executives from the boardroom to the Oval Office. And he reminds us of the virtue of being a sleeper success.
