The term "chief executive officer" has been around since about 1917, when the modern business management system was first established.
A new article from PwC's strategy+business traces the evolution of the role over the past century–and looks ahead to 2040. To save you some time, we've distilled the insights of authors Ken Favaro, Per-Ola Karlsson and Gary L. Neilson into a few takeaways, but it's worth a full read.
Let's start with the history of the role. Here's the breakdown of a typical CEO across three eras:
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In 1914, the CEO was a monarch. Think Henry Ford and John Rockefeller. These guys "built vast fortunes and empires, largely because they had inordinate faith in the correctness of their visions as the inventors and builders of previously unknown industries," the authors say.
In 1964, the CEO was a prime minister. Think Walt Disney and Ray Kroc of McDonald's. These execs "selected the leading executives, supervised the allocation of resources to achieve [their] goals, and monitored the performance of the organization to ensure that it continued to turn profits and expand its market," the authors say.
In 2014, the CEO is an agile leader. These execs–more of whom are women–forgo five-year plans in favor of nimble, responsive evaluations. "Given the high correlation between employee engagement and productivity, CEOs must work hard to ensure that all employees, regardless of age, feel a sense of meaning, purpose, and engagement in their work," the authors say.
Then we get to their 2040 predictions. They say that 25 years from now, some 30 percent of the world's 2,500 top global CEOs will be women–a marked increase over the 5 percent today.
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