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LeadershipBusiness Leaders

These are the top-rated small business CEOs

By
Daniel Roberts
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By
Daniel Roberts
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June 10, 2015, 2:24 PM ET
Kevin Hartz Interview
Kevin Hartz, chief executive officer and co-founder of Eventbrite Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg West television interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, July 5, 2012. Hartz discussed the company's growth strategy, the outlook for investment in the technology industry and Pinterest Inc. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesDavid Paul Morris/Bloomberg—Getty Images

Job-hunter web site Glassdoor put out its third annual Employees’ Choice Awards today. They rank the top-rated CEOs in the country, based on votes by their own employees. Among the top-ranked CEOs of large companies (those with 1,000 or more employees) were big names such as Google’s (GOOG) Larry Page, Facebook’s (FB) Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook of Apple (AAPL).

But the survey also honored CEOs of small and medium-sized companies (those with fewer than 1,000 employees), and Fortune readers may recognize quite a few of the names on that list.

The top six small-business CEOs, all with a 98% approval rating, were: Frank Williams of Evolent Health (founded in 2011, based in Virginia); Tobias Dengel of WillowTree (an app development company that’s been around since 2007); Renaud Laplanche of LendingClub; Greg Penske of Penske Motor Group (see Fortune‘s recent profile of Penske’s father Roger); David Durand of Best Version Media (a publishing company that owns 250 magazines); and Scott Smith of OneGuard, which offers home warranties.

Rounding out the top 10 are Kevin Hartz, cofounder and CEO of Eventbrite (a ticket marketplace and tech “unicorn”); John Dowd of the New Jersey travel agency Sundance Vacations; Darius Mirshahzadeh of Endeavor America Loan Services; and Brian Halligan, CEO of Boston-area marketing company HubSpot, which went public last year.

Glassdoor also ranked the top female CEOs.

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By Daniel Roberts
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