University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban landed at No. 12 on Fortune magazine’s 2018 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.
The list, posted Thursday morning on the magazine’s website, is topped by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other schools who have spoken out against gun violence. The top three is rounded out by Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the Gates Foundation, and the #MeToo Movement, which brought attention to the pervasiveness of sexual abuse.
The Fortune article gives brief descriptions of each leaders’ qualifications and notes that Saban has earned five college football national championships in the past nine years at UA. Coupled with the national championship he earned while coaching at LSU in 2003, Saban’s six rings match UA legend Paul W. “Bear” Bryant for the most football championships by a college coach in the poll era, dating to 1936.
“Now that he’s succeeded to a historic degree, Saban is grappling with the sports version of what business guru Clayton Christensen famously dubbed the ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’ — the fact that success today makes it hard to keep the edge you need to win in the future. But if the last few years are any indication, the grappling is going pretty well,” the article states.
Saban ranks right below Mary Barr, the CEO of General Motors, and right above Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. Apple CEO Tim Cook, a graduate of Auburn University, ranks two spots beneath Saban.
This isn’t the first time Saban has made Fortune’s list of World’s Greatest Leaders. In 2016, the UA coach was ranked No. 11. Saban did not make Fortune’s 2017 list.
