*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.

Share:
More In Politics
Russia May Be Pivoting Its Strategy in Ukraine
As the war enters its second month, Russia may be changing course on its strategy in Ukraine. After suffering heavy losses, forces around the capital city of Kyiv appear to have stopped offensive operations and are now shifting their focus to taking over the south and east of the country. Terrell Starr, a foreign affairs reporter at The Atlantic Council, breaks down the latest from Kyiv. "Logistically this war has been a disaster. They have far more troops than [the] Ukrainian army has. What they don't have is good planning. The planning has been incredibly poor," he said.
Crypto on the Rise Amid Month of Volatility
Volatility continues to be the name of the game when it comes to crypto. Bitcoin, the most valuable digital token, saw a small jump today - one of several small rallies throughout the month of March. Caitlin Cook, vice president of crypto education company Onramp Academy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Flood of Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills Have Been Introduced in States This Year
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
How Deepfakes Are Used In The War In Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
Load More