Red Hat racks up industry accolades from Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune and Great Place to Work Institute

Red Hat has always prided itself as being an innovative company, both in the technologies we create and how we approach business itself. Open source is a driving force behind much of the technology innovation we see today and Red Hat uses the power of open to help drive change, from operating systems and virtualization to cloud computing and containers.  

It’s because of this dedication to innovation that we’re proud to announce that Red Hat has been named to Forbes’ Most Innovative Companies List for 2018. With our inclusion on this year’s list, we have been ranked six times - in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. We are ranked number 24 on the list this year. The Most Innovative Companies ranking is based on a company's "innovation premium," which Forbes describes as the difference between market capitalization and the net present value of cash flows from existing businesses (based on a proprietary algorithm from Credit Suisse’s HOLT investment management platform). What makes this methodology particularly rewarding to us, is that it reflects not only our ability to innovate now, but also investors’ “educated hunch” that we have the potential to innovate in the future.

In addition, we’re excited to share that our president and CEO, Jim Whitehurst, was recently named as one of the World’s Best CEOs by Barron’s. The yearly list highlights the world’s 30 best CEOs based on revenue, profit, stock-price trends and then its editorial team evaluates how much their actions led to their company’s success.

This year, we also moved up the Fortune 1000, recognizing America’s largest public companies, from 920 to 850. It is an honor to be included on all of these lists because they represent companies and leaders not just from technology, but from across all industries.

Finally, turning the lens internationally, the Great Place to Work Institute ranked Red Hat as a top employer in several regions and categories. Great Place to Work identified us as one of the best employers in Germany and Switzerland. Moreover, we were voted one of the best employers in the ITC sector and in the federal state of Bavaria.

Great Place to Work honors companies that are particularly to building a trusting and supportive culture of collaboration in their organization. The assessment is carried out using the institute's two instruments: the trust index survey of employees and a culture audit with the management of the companies. For the trust index, employees are asked about central workplace issues. The survey consists of 58 core statements which assess employees' experience of the workplace covering 120 key areas including strategy and direction, the organization's values, opportunities for career development, recognition and reward, corporate social responsibility and wellbeing. In the culture audit, the management is questioned about leadership and HR policies and practices that creates an organization's culture.

As we celebrate our 25th anniversary this year, these rankings are further indication that open source is a powerful force that can change the world. Since our inception, we’ve shown how defaulting to open can unlock potential and have established a leadership position in the world of open-sourced, community-driven innovation.

Thank you and congratulations to all Red Hatters, and the broader open source community. Innovation can happen with open source and with their contributions.