Top 10: Unicorn CEOs

While global industries race to implement growth and capital allocation strategies to keep pace with global change and the promise of AI adoption, CEOs of globally renowned unicorns are at the forefront, spearheading change and innovation, and standing out as charismatic, public leaders.

From tech-focused industries like finance and manufacturing, to areas that incorporate an in-person consumer experience like fashion and retail, these unicorns are both developing and incorporating transformative technologies and approaches to business into their operations.

With that in mind, we highlight some of the pioneering leaders at the helm of the world’s fastest growing and disruptive companies.

10. Alexandr Wang

Company: ​​​​​​​Scale AI
Revenue: US$870m
Founded: 2016

From college dropout to one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires, Alexandr has quickly established himself as a tech pioneer in the Silicon Valley scene. He established ScaleAI in 2016 to provide Meta and OpenAI with data labelling and model evaluation services for AI applications.

Under his leadership, ScaleAI has taken on US government contracts, assisted in the development of ChatGPT and offered AI solutions in the marketing, financial and legal industries. Despite Alexandr’s short tenure in the industry, he has an estimated net worth of more than US$3bn.

9. Ali Ghodsi

Company: Databricks
Revenue: US$2.6bn
Founded: 2013

As co-founder and CEO, Ali founded Databricks in 2013, with the vision to simplify and democratise data and AI. He led the company from a university research project to a leading data and AI platform and served as a key player in the development of several major open-source projects, including Apache Spark, Delta Lake and MLflow.

Under his leadership, Databricks has achieved a multi-billion dollar annual revenue, worked with thousands of enterprises and accelerated its AI strategy.

8. Dario Amodei

Company: ​​​​​​​Anthropic
Revenue: US$30bn
Founded: 2021

Steering Anthropic from a spin-out to a leading frontier-model lab, Dario founded the company in 2021 along with seven other former OpenAI employees.

As leader, he helped lead the development of the Claude models and pioneered AI training systems like Constitutional AI and Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback.

Since its early days, Anthropic has secured several billion-dollar partnerships with companies like Google and Amazon and furthered the development of Responsible Scaling frameworks.

7. Jack Zhang

Company: Airwallex
Revenue: US$6.2bn
Founded: 2015

As co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, Jack oversaw the company's growth as a global payments and financial platform. 

He drove the creation of a worldwide payments network, helped secure key regulatory licences and partnerships, and expanded company operations across Asia, the Middle East and North and South America.

Under Jack’s direction, Airwallex has served thousands of businesses and has seen sustained, rapid growth since its founding. 

6. Nikolay Storonsky

Company: ​​​​​​​Revolut
Revenue: US$4.5bn
Founded: 2015

As Revolut’s CEO, Nikolay has ensured the company’s place as a leader in the UK and European fintech industry.

He led the brand from a 2015 startup to a financial super app with international reach and options for investment, crypto and business banking.

In the past 10 years he has been instrumental in positioning Revolut as a profitable company with the ability to serve tens of millions of customers worldwide.

5. Patrick Collison

Company: ​​​​​​​Stripe
Revenue: US$5.1bn
Founded: 2010

Patrick co-founded Stripe with his brother, John, in 2010 with the aim to simplify digital payments over the internet.

More than a decade on, Stripe has become synonymous with online retailers, with millions of businesses using the company as a way to accept payments and manage businesses online.

Patrick has also helped expand Stripe’s offerings such as its Billing, Tax and Climate products.

4. Melanie Perkins

Company: ​​​​​​​Canva
Revenue: US$4bn
Founded: 2013

One of Australia's most successful tech entrepreneurs and one of the world’s youngest female tech leaders, Melanie began her journey with Canva in 2007, where she was inspired to create the platform after seeing university students struggling to use industry standard creative software.

Since its official founding in 2013, Canva has become a billion-dollar enterprise and expanded its platform through strategic acquisitions with brands like Simtheory, Cavalry and MangoAI.

3. Chris Xu

Company: ​​​​​​​SHEIN
Revenue: US$38bn
Founded: 2008

While not one for regular public appearances, Chris is recognised as a hard worker behind the scenes of SHEIN and has led the company from fashion-startup status to a globally-recognised business with a US$100bn valuation.

Under Chris’s leadership, SHEIN has become one of the world’s most downloaded shopping apps and has expanded beyond fashion into a retailer of lifestyle categories like homeware, beauty and health and electronics.

2. Elon Musk

Company: ​​​​​​​SpaceX
Revenue: US$30bn
Founded: 2002

Beginning operations in 2002, Elon established SpaceX with the intention to reduce the cost of space access with a new generation of efficient and reliable launch vehicles.

As the company’s founder and Chief Technology Officer, he helped develop reusable space rockets and created the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

Elon has also been instrumental in building the Starlink constellation and is currently in the process of developing spacecraft for SpaceX’s Mars missions.

1. Sam Altman

Company: ​​​​​​​OpenAI
Revenue: US$13.1bn
Founded: 2015

One of the most discussed names in the modern tech industry, Sam Altman has transformed OpenAI from a nonprofit AI lab into one of the world’s most valuable private companies.

As CEO, he has helped advance the company’s large language models like ChatGPT and established it as a global leader in AI development.

Sam has joined forces with major tech brands like Microsoft to scale compute for its Azure cloud computing service in addition to partnering with companies like NVIDIA, Amazon and SoftBank.

Over the course of his career, Sam has funded nearly 100 companies, with previous investments in firms like Neuralink, Helion Energy, Hermeus and Reddit.