PERSON: Jim Clifton

Chairman and CEO

Jim Clifton is best known in the polling and survey research field for leading the acquisition of The Gallup Organization in 1988, at which time he became CEO of the organization founded by the renowned polling pioneer, Dr. George H. Gallup. Under Clifton’s leadership, Gallup has enjoyed a tenfold increase in its billing volume and has expanded from a predominantly U.S.-based company to a global organization with more than 40 offices in 20 of the world’s largest nations. Gallup is one of the world’s most influential institutions and providers of public opinion polling and management consulting. Clifton is best known in the business world as the creator of The Gallup Path. This metric-based economic model establishes the linkages among human nature in the workplace, customer engagement, and business outcomes. The Gallup Path is integral to the performance management systems in more than 500 companies worldwide and forms the basis of most of Gallup’s total revenues. Few people care as much as Jim Clifton does about what the world is thinking. His most recent innovation, the Gallup World Poll, is designed to tell the 10 million people who lead, govern, and manage the world what the world’s 6 billion citizens are thinking. Clifton has pledged to continually collect people’s opinions for 100 years in more than 100 countries to determine the general well-being or “soul” of a country, city, or culture. Questions in this ground-breaking project delve into individual and social needs, including food and shelter, safety and security, mental and physical health, education, jobs, economics and finances, transportation, water and air quality, hope and futurism, leadership approval, religion, and war and peace. Clifton serves as Chairman of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund. He has received honorary degrees from a number of institutions, including a Doctor of Commerce degree from Bellevue University in Nebraska and Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Medgar Evers College in New York and Jackson State University in Mississippi.<br> <br> — worldcongress.com