Merco, the benchmark monitor in Ibero-America for its methodology, presented the 100 companies and the 100 leaders with the best reputation in 2021 this Wednesday, September 8, at an online event. These rankings are born after an exhaustive and detailed analysis of more than 47,235 surveys, 7 evaluations and 25 sources of information; verified through an independent review by KPMG, in accordance with the ISAE 3000 standard.

Merco has had the participation of 1,110 executives of large companies, 77 Dircoms and opinion leaders, 76 economic information journalists, 50 members of the government, 57 professors from the business area, 77 financial analysts, 56 social media managers, 90 heads of NGOs, 75 from unions, 60 heads of consumer associations, 4,130 citizens, 40,692 workers and, as a novelty, has also included the evaluation of 609 self-employed professionals, directors and owners of SMEs, who have valued from the customer and supplier point of view. Along with these evaluations, an analysis of the reputation in the digital field of companies (Merco Digital) is considered, with more than 1,615,995 mentions, and the reality of these through an evaluation of reputational merits by 76 companies.

Inditex (1st) leads the ranking of the most reputable companies in our country, followed by Mercadona (2nd) and Grupo Social Once (3rd). The top 10 is completed by Repsol (4th), Telefónica (5th), Mapfre (6th), Iberdrola (7th), Ikea (8th), Nestlé (9th) and Coca Cola (10th).

Among the main increases in this 21st edition, we can highlight that of Corporación Hijos de Rivera, which went from 87th to 49th place, and that of two companies in the pharmaceutical sector: Roche, from 94th to 62nd; and Bayer, from 59th to 30th.

It should be noted the additions to the ranking of Pfizer (56th), Eroski (58th), Johnson and Johnson (70th), Santalucía Seguros (71st), Metro de Madrid (85th), Grupo Antolín (92nd), 3M (96th) and Ecoalf ( 99th), which were not among the top 100 positions in 2020.

Regarding Merco Leaders 2021, the manager with the highest reputation in Spain is Juan Roig (1st) [Mercadona], for the third consecutive year; followed by Pablo Isla (2nd) [Inditex]; Ana Botín (3rd) [Santander]; Amancio Ortega (4th) [Inditex]; José María Álvarez-Pallete (5th) [Telefónica]; María Dolores Dancausa (6th) [Bankinter]; Ignacio Sánchez Galán (7th) [Iberdrola]; José Ignacio Goirigolzarri (8th) [Bankia]; Antonio Brufau (9th) [Repsol] and Isidre Fainé Casas (10th) [La Caixa Banking Foundation].

It is worth highlighting the significant increases by José Bogas (Endesa), from 70th to 40th place; Marta Álvarez (El Corte Inglés), from 62nd to 41st; Gonzalo Sánchez (PWC), from 58th to 39th; and Javier Goyeneche (Ecoalf), from 54º to 35º.

On the other hand, this year appear in the ranking: Onur Genc (51º) [BBVA], Paolo Tafuri (52º) [Danone], Koldo Echebarría (53º) [Esade], Federico Linares (54º) [EY], Mariangela Marseglia ( 55º) [Amazon], Demetrio Carceller (56º) [Damm], Olga Sánchez (66º) [Axa], Víctor del Pozo (68º) [El Corte Inglés], Cristina Garmendia (71º) [Cotec], Belén Garijo (75º) [Merck], Juan Ignacio de Elizalde (79º) [Coca-Cola], Rosa María García (86º) [Businesswoman], Meinrad Spenger (92º) [More Mobile Telecom], Adriana Domínguez (94º) [Adolfo Domínguez], Philippe Boiseau (97th) [Cepsa], José Aljaro (98th) [Abertis], Óscar Pierre (99th) [Glovo] and Agustín Markaide (100th) [Eroski].

Main findings of the 21st edition

For managers, regarding the reputational profile of Spanish companies, we find that in 2021 ethics and corporate responsibility (4.4%) and innovation (1.2%) are the most outstanding values. On the opposite side we find the international dimension of the company (-2.9%) and the economic-financial results (-2.3%).

Regarding the evolution of the average evaluations of the experts, companies come out of the pandemic with a good note. Clearly improve the evaluations of heads of consumer associations (from 56.9 to 63.4), of financial analysts (from 63.3 to 65.6), of heads of NGOs (from 51.1 to 53.0), of journalists (from 61.7 to 63.3) and of members of the Government (from 62.4 to 64.0). That of the professors of the company area (72.0 in 2021 and 72.8 in 2021) and that of Social Media Managers (60.6 both in 2020 and 2021) remain. Finally, that of union leaders worsened somewhat (from 54.1 to 53.4).