Notably, none of his favorites is on Wall Street.

Obama named FedEx CEO Fred Smith as one executive he admired during the Tuesday interview in the Oval Office. Smith was a co-chairman of the campaign finance committee for Obama’s Republican presidential rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“Very thoughtful” was Obama’s verdict on Smith. “He’s an example of somebody who is thinking long term. His industry is deeply sensitive to energy prices, and he’s the first one to say that if we don’t start getting an energy policy that’s smart, we’re going to lose. He’s also very thoughtful about trade and talks about the difficulties they’ve had in some cases with partners around the world.”

Obama had an aide follow up with some other names on the list, including Honeywell’s David Cote, Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg and John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

In the interview, Obama said that some of the frustration his administration has vented against the big Wall Street banks has been wrongly interpreted as generally anti-business.

“Part of what also happened was that there were some big issues like health reform, like energy, like financial regulatory reform, in which you have got some pretty significant, well-funded industry interest groups who are adamantly opposed. And they have got a lot of sway within the business community,” Obama said.

But he defended his policy agenda as one that will help American business, not harm it.

“If you actually look at our policies, everything that we have done over the last year, and everything we intend to do over the next several years, I think is going to put American business on a stronger footing,” Obama said.