Infosys boss 'among world's best'

Mr Murthy has placed above media giant Rupert Murdoch

NR Narayana Murthy, the founder of India's Infosys Technologies, has been ranked as the eighth best CEO in the world in a business survey.

The new global study of the world's 15 most admired CEOs was conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence Unit.

At the top is Microsoft's founder Bill Gates while British-Asian steel magnate Laxmi Niwas Mittal comes in at 15.

Nearly 700 leading business people in 65 countries took part in the survey.

Mr Murthy was ahead of the News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch who came in at number 10. Jorma Ollila of Nokia was ranked 13.

Microsoft's Bill Gates is ranked as the best CEO

The top four places in the list went to bosses of American companies while nine of 15 were from other regions - four from the UK, one each from Finland, Netherlands, Japan, Australia and India.

Eight of the top 15 were company founders while all the CEOs in the list have been with their companies for at least three years or more.

"The tenures of these top-ranking CEOs are not short-lived. They had an average tenure of 21 years to repeatedly prove themselves," said Patrick Ford, chief of Burson-Marsteller's Global Corporate/Financial Practice.

No women made it to the list.