For the past 14 years, Spencer Stuart has conducted research on the developmental background and professional experience of the CEOs of leading companies in the US. This year our research was conducted among CEOs of S&P 500 companies.
This annual research allows us to compare the career paths of today's CEOs with those of previous years and to determine the areas in which there has been the most change. It reveals emerging trends among these leaders and draws a more detailed image as to what sort of experience is required of today's company leader — and what makes today's CEOs.
Did you know...
- The median age for S&P 500 CEOs this year is 54. This is slightly lower than recent years; over the past six years, the median age for the leading 500 CEOs has wavered between 55 and 56 years.
- This year, there were 3 CEOs younger than 40 years of age. Last year there was only one CEO younger than 40.
- There were a total of 47 new CEOs included in the study this year, 8 (16%) fewer than last year.
- Consistent with the past two years, the majority (66%) of new CEOs in the S&P 500 are in the 50 to 59 age range.
- International experience among S&P 500 CEOs has increased in the past five years from 26% to 34%.
- For the second year in a row, Operations (31%) was the most popular functional role before becoming CEO, followed by finance (21%) and marketing roles (12%). Before 2007, finance had been the most common functional role.
- As companies have begun to restrict outside board activity, there has been a decline in CEOs serving on multiple boards. In the past three years, the number of CEOs who sat on three or more external boards dropped from 8% to 2%.Today, nearly half of S&P 500 CEOs do not sit on an outside board.
- There were a total of 14 female CEOs in the S&P 500 included in the study this year.
- All of this year’s female CEOs have undergraduate degrees compared with 97% of the overall S&P 500; 4 of them (or 29%) hold M.B.A. degrees.
The links below will take you to specific elements of the research as contained in our PDF.
The link to the complete study (PDF) can be found at the bottom of the page.
The following areas were analysed for this report:
S&P 500 turnover summary
Printing instructions:
These documents should be printed to 8.5 x 14 (US Legal) paper.
Research
Research for the 14th annual Route to the Top was prepared by Meghan Felicelli, Spencer Stuart, Chicago, Illinois. Research and trend comparisons are based on the S&P 500 ranking as of April 18, 2008; Fortune’s past rankings of the top 1,000 U.S. companies; Fortune’s May 5, 1980 ranking of the largest U.S. industrial corporations; and Fortune’s July 14, 1980 ranking of the 50 largest non-industrial companies.
Sources:
- Marquis Who’s Who in America, 1980-1981
- The Corporate Yellow Book, Summer 2006 edition
- 50,000 Leading U.S. Corporations-Business Trends, 1980
- Standard & Poor’s Register of Corporations, Directors & Executives, 1980
- QuestNT (Spencer Stuart’s proprietary database)
- Corporate web sites
- Company proxies
- Company press releases
- OneSource.com
- Hoovers.com
- Prior to 2006, University registrars were phoned to verify degree information when necessary
- Companies were contacted to request or verify biographical information when necessary
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(PDF - 326KB)