The third best CEO (technically, chairman) of 2014 might be number 1 on many lists. Jack Ma guided Chinese internet innovator Alibaba to the largest IPO the world has ever seen, raising $25bn in the process. As founder and CEO for years, and now chairman, Ma has succeeded in building arguably the first made-in-China digital powerhouse company to make it big in Western markets (Tencent and Xiaomi aren’t far behind). Alibaba is the world’s biggest e-commerce company, generating 2014 sales double that of Amazon and eBay combined. It’s also on the way to becoming one of the biggest banks in China through its Alipay app, which allows customers to make online purchases, including of its own money-market fund ($90bn in assets after 18 months in business). Ma’s strategy is to compete in many of the sectors of the online world, and in addition to everything else, he is also doing so via 2014 investments in Ping An Insurance, China’s second-largest insurer, and stakes in prominent Silicon Valley start-ups, including Lyft, Tango, Fanatics and Kabam. In addition, Ma is expanding Alibaba’s presence in a number of tangential industries that have high growth potential in a number of emerging markets. The big challenge for Ma in 2015 will be to maintain momentum while balancing all the initiatives on the table for Alibaba. The company’s growth trajectory is aggressive even for online companies, but Ma is the type of leader who is highly unlikely to become complacent amid all the superlatives. Add in the pressure that fellow online giant Tencent, in particular, will bring, and the inability to surprise anyone anymore in Western countries, and 2015 will test the mettle of Ma’s leadership. If he pulls it off again, it won’t be surprising to see him make the best CEO list once more. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)