Chief executive officer

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(Redirected from Chief executive)
"Chief Executive", "CEO", and "CEOs" redirect here. For other uses, see Chief
executive (disambiguation) and CEO (disambiguation).

A chief executive officer (CEO[1]) is the position of the most senior corporate
officer, executive, leader or administrator in charge of managing an organization.
CEOs lead a range of organizations, including public and private corporations, non-
profit organizations and even some government organizations (e.g., Crown
corporations). The CEO of a corporation or company typically reports to the board
of directors and is charged with maximizing the value of the entity,[1] which may
include maximizing the share price, market share, revenues, or another element. In
the non-profit and government sector, CEOs typically aim at achieving outcomes
related to the organization's mission, such as reducing poverty, increasing
literacy, etc. Titles also often given to the holder of CEO position include
president, chief executive (CE), and managing director (MD),[2] as well as
representative director (RD) in Japan.[3][4]

Contents

1 Responsibilities
2 Characteristics
2.1 Celebrities
3 International use
4 Related positions
4.1 US
4.2 UK
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of an organization's CEO are set by the organization's board

of directors or other authority, depending on the organization's legal structure.
They can be far-reaching or quite limited and are typically enshrined in a formal
delegation of authority. Typically, responsibilities include decision maker on
strategy and other key policy issues, leader, manager, and executor. The
communicator role can involve speaking to the press and the rest of the outside
world, as well as to the organization's management and employees; the decision-
making role involves high-level decisions about policy and strategy. As a leader of
the company, the CEO or MD advises the board of directors, motivates employees, and
drives change within the organization. As a manager, the CEO/MD presides over the
organization's day-to-day operations.[5][6][7] The term refers to the person who
makes all the key decisions regarding the company, which includes all sectors and
fields of the business, including operations, marketing, business development,
finance, human resources, etc. The CEO of a company is not necessarily the owner of
the company.
Characteristics

Earlier in the century, top executives were more likely to have technical degrees
in science and engineering or law.[8] As of 2016, there were 20 female CEOs of S&P
500 companies, approximately 4%.[9]
Celebrities

Business publicists since the days of Edward Bernays and his client John D.
Rockefeller and even more successfully the corporate publicists for Henry Ford,
promoted the concept of the "celebrity CEO". Business journalists have often
adopted this approach, which assumes that the corporate achievements, especially in
the arena of manufacturing, were produced by unique talented individuals,
especially the "heroic CEO". In effect, journalists celebrate a CEO who takes
distinctive strategic actions. The model is the celebrity in entertainment, sports,
and politics. Guthey et al. argue that "...these individuals are not self-made, but
rather are created by a process of widespread media exposure to the point that
their actions, personalities, and even private lives function symbolically to
represent significant dynamics and tensions prevalent in the contemporary business
atmosphere."[10] Journalism thereby exaggerates the importance of the CEO and tends
to neglect the harder-to-describe broader corporate factors. There is little
attention to the intricately organized technical bureaucracy that actually does the
work. Hubris sets in when the CEO internalizes the celebrity and becomes
excessively self-confident in making complex decisions. Indeed, there may be an
emphasis on the sort of decisions that attract the celebrity journalists.[11]
International use

In some European Union countries, there is a dual board system with two separate
boards, one executive board for the day-to-day business and one supervisory board
for control purposes (selected by the shareholders). In these countries, the CEO
presides over the executive board and the chairman presides over the supervisory
board, and these two roles will always be held by different people. This ensures a
distinction between management by the executive board and governance by the
supervisory board. This allows for clear lines of authority. The aim is to prevent
a conflict of interest and too much power being concentrated in the hands of one
person.

In the United States, the board of directors (elected by the shareholders) is often
equivalent to the supervisory board, while the executive board may often be known
as the executive committee (the division/subsidiary heads and C-level officers that
report directly to the CEO).

In the United States, and in business, the executive officers are usually the top
officers of a corporation, the chief executive officer (CEO) being the best-known
type. The definition varies; for instance, the California Corporate Disclosure Act
defines "executive officers" as the five most highly compensated officers not also
sitting on the board of directors. In the case of a sole proprietorship, an
executive officer is the sole proprietor. In the case of a partnership, an
executive officer is a managing partner, senior partner, or administrative partner.
In the case of a limited liability company, executive officer is any member,
manager, or officer.
Related positions
Main article: Corporate title

Typically, a CEO has several subordinate executives, each of whom has specific
functional responsibilities referred to as senior executives,[12] executive
officers or corporate officers. Subordinate executives are given different titles
in different organizations, but one common category of subordinate executive is the
vice-president (VP). An organization may have more than one vice-president, each
tasked with a different area of responsibility (e.g., VP of finance, VP of human
resources, VP of research and development, etc.). Some organizations have
subordinate executive officers who also have the word "Chief" in their job title,
such as Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief
Technology Officer (CTO).
US

In the US, the term chief executive officer is used primarily in business, whereas
the term executive director is used primarily in the not-for-profit sector. These
terms are generally mutually exclusive and refer to distinct legal duties and
responsibilities. Implicit in the use of these titles is that the public not be
misled and the general standard regarding their use be consistently applied.
UK

In the UK, "chief executive" and "chief executive officer", are used in both
business and the charitable sector (not-for-profit sector).[13] As of 2013, the use
of the term director for senior charity staff is deprecated to avoid confusion with
the legal duties and responsibilities associated with being a charity director or
trustee, which are normally non-executive (unpaid) roles.In the United Kingdom, the
term director is used instead of chief officer.
See also

CEO succession
CEO of public schools
Executive officer
List of books written by CEOs
List of chief executive officers
Occupational Information Network
United States Department of Labor

References

Lin, Tom C. W. (April 23, 2014). "CEOs and Presidents". Retrieved June 29, 2017
via papers.SSRN.com.
"Managing Director". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Retrieved June 14,
2017.
"?????" [Daihyo torishimaryaku] (in Japanese). Japanese-English Dictionary.
Retrieved March 31, 2017.
"?????" [Daihyo torishimaryaku] (in Japanese). NTT Resonant. Retrieved March 31,
2017.
"Chief Executive Officer - CEO". Investopedia. Investopedia US, a Division of IAC.
Retrieved 2014-10-23.
"Chief Executive Officer (CEO)". BusinessDictionary.com. WebFinance Inc. Retrieved
October 23, 2014.
Capstone Publishing (2003). The Capstone Encyclopaedia of Business. Oxford, U.K:
Capstone Publishing. pp. 7980. ISBN 1-84112-053-7.
Bertrand, Marianne (2012), "CEOs", Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, 1:
121150, doi:10.1146/annurev.economics.050708.143301
Catalyst (2016) "Knowledge Center: Women CEOs of the S&P 500". Retrieved April 14,
2016.
Eric Guthey and Timothy Clark, Demystifying Business Celebrity (2009).
Mathew L.A. Hayward, Violina P. Rindova, and Timothy G. Pollock. "Believing one's
own press: The causes and consequences of CEO celebrity." Strategic Management
Journal 25#7 (2004): 637-653.
Markus Menz (2011-10-04). "Menz, M. 2012. Functional Top Management Team Members: A
Review, Synthesis, and Research Agenda. Journal of Management, 38(1): 45-80".
Jom.sagepub.com. Retrieved 2012-11-28.

"Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations". Acevo.org.uk.

2012-11-16. Retrieved 2012-11-28.

Further reading

Huang, Jiekun, and Darren J. Kisgen. "Gender and corporate finance: Are male
executives overconfident relative to female executives?." Journal of Financial
Economics 108#3 (2013): 822-839. online
Kaplan, Steven N., Mark M. Klebanov, and Morten Sorensen. "Which CEO
characteristics and abilities matter?." Journal of Finance 67#3 (2012): 973-1007.
online
 Shleifer, Andrei, and Robert W. Vishny. "A survey of corporate governance."
Journal of Finance 52#2 (1997): 737-783.
Vancil, Richard F. Passing the baton: Managing the process of CEO succession
(Harvard Business School Press, 1987).

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chief executive officers.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Chief executive officer

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Top Executives: Description and Outlook

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