The American CEO who employees say makes their lives great everyday is actually a Chinese immigrant, according to a new survey.

Glassdoor's 'Top CEOs 2018: Employee's Choice' list revealed that workers had given Zoom Video CEO Eric Yuan a 99 per cent overall approval rating, landing him the top spot on the career website's newly released survey.

Yuan, a Chinese immigrant who heads up the privately-owned video communications company, reigns over a CEO list that includes the chiefs of companies such as Boston Scientific, DocuSign, In-N-Out Burger, Wegmans Food Market and LinkedIn.

Chinese immigrant and Zoom Video founder/CEO Eric Yuan was ranked No. 1 in Glassdoor's 'Top CEOs 2018: Employee's Choice.' He applied for a US visa nine times over two years

Glassdoor's annual list is based on the approval ratings employees give CEOs while posting their anonymous company reviews.

Yuan is now the first person of color to hold the list's No. 1 CEO spot, a notable achievement, especially during a time when immigration policies and general racial tension are dogging the Trump Administration and becoming an increasingly divisive issue for Americans.

Before establishing himself in America in the 1990s, Yuan said that he had to apply for a US visa nine times over the course of two years before finally being granted his visa.

'When I came to America, I did not even speak English, but I knew I could write software code,' Yuan said in an interview with Glassdoor, CBS News reported.

'I knew I had to work hard, so I did. Also, I'm very paranoid. I say to myself, "I have to work harder." Working hard, that's the only thing I know better than my competitor.'

Yuan also explained, according to Biz Journals: 'If my competitors say, "I work eight hours a day," then I can work 10 hours. If you don’t need sleep, I also do not need sleep. Hard work is in my DNA.'

After moving to the states from China, Yuan landed at Webex, where he worked from 1997 to 2011, growing the Webex team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide.

He rose to the Corporate Vice President of Engineering position at Cisco, Webex's parent company, before leaving to found Zoom, which now employs about 1,200 people in six offices across the US and one each in the UK and Australia.

Zoom Video was based on an idea that Yuan had while he was a college freshman and still living in China.

Employees at Zoom Video, headquartered in California, gave Yuan a 99 per cent approval rating. The company, founded in 2012, now employs about 700 people

Tired of regular, crowded, 10-hour train rides to visit his girlfriend - now wife - who lived in another part of the country, Yuan told Medium that he used to daydream about a way he could see his girlfriend without needing to travel so far and so long.

Zoom Video, headquartered in San Jose, California, now makes remote, video conference solutions for companies, using cloud computing.

'We saw employees not only rating him highly, but we looked at the quality of the reviews,' Glassdoor spokesperson Scott Dobroski told CBS News.

'They say he's an inspiring leader who wants to make the world a better place. He leads by trusting and empowering employees.'

'The number one thing I want to say, and I want our employees to say, is that they are happy,' Yuan said, adding, 'We're going to care about each other, really focus on delivering happiness to each other. Ultimately, as a company, we deliver happiness to our customers.'

This year's Top 100 CEOs also includes eight women. Two of the women, In-N-Out Burger's Lynsi Snyder and Wegmans Food Markets' Colleen Wegman, made it into the Top 10, coming in at No. 4 and No. 9, respectively.