Today’s Top CEOs

Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Roles and Responsibilities vs. Other Chief Roles

Frequently Asked Questions

  • In general, the chief executive officer (CEO) is considered the highest-ranking officer in a company, while the president is second in charge. However, the roles may be different depending on the company. Often the CEO and president carry out different duties, and the roles are performed by two people. At smaller companies or those without subsidiaries, the CEO and president roles are often carried out by the same person.

  • Bill Gates invests his money in corporations: the majority of his financial assets are held by Cascade Investment LLC, an entity controlled by Gates to manage his investments. Bill Gates also puts his money to use buying real assets, including a sprawling estate and a private island. He also owns collectibles: In 1994, he purchased a celebrated Leonardo Da Vinci manuscript at auction for $30.8 million, as well as Andrew Wyeth's "Distant Thunder" for $7 million in 1996 and William Merritt Chase's "The Nursery" for $10 million in 1997.

  • Apple CEO Tim Cook has a managerial style could be broadly defined as democratic. Cook’s management style involves organizing teams with dedicated project managers. These leads spearhead the product vision from beginning to end, determining the financing, staff, and resources to see the project through. Under this management style, teams don't act in silos, but rather collaborate and communicate often.

  • When a chief executive officer (CEO) leaves a company, stock investors want to know why. When a new CEO comes in, they worry whether that's going to be good or bad for the bottom line. A CEO transition will usually make a stock's price more volatile in the short term. This is why many companies signal a transition well in advance, because an abrupt departure by a CEO is rarely good news.

  • Jack Welch was the CEO of General Electric (GE) from 1981-2001 and earned the moniker “Neutron Jack” from his management style. When he came into the position, he had GE cut all businesses in which the company could not dominate the market in first or second positions. Next, he had managers fire the bottom 10% of GE employees, and he fired the bottom 10% of management. The new commitment to competition came with large rewards, especially as stock option grants increased in value and GE continued to grow rapidly. GE soon became one of the most coveted places to work and attracted the best in the world.

Key Terms

  • Insider

    An insider is a director, senior officer, entity, or individual that owns more than 10% of a publicly traded company's voting shares. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has enacted stringent rules to prevent insiders from engaging in insider trading. Insider trading is when insiders buy or sell shares of a company based on material information not readily available to the general public.

  • Interim CEO

    An interim chief executive officer is often named when a company loses its CEO unexpectedly. The duties of an interim CEO (or a full-time CEO) include acting as a top liaison between corporate operations and its shareholders and board of directors, managing significant corporate actions, and even day-to-day operations at smaller companies. CEOs may sit on a company's board of directors, but interim CEOs might not, depending on the circumstances.

  • Mad Hatter

    A Mad Hatter in business is a top executive who baffles employees and shareholders by consistently displaying poor judgment, questionable conduct, or both. The Mad Hatter in a public company may be pushed out by shareholders and the board of directors. Not much can be done about a Mad Hatter in a private company, who may hold the financial strings.

  • CEO Conference Survey

    The CEO Confidence Survey is a monthly survey of 100 chief executive officers (CEOs) from a variety of industries in the U.S. economy. This quarterly report, based on a survey of approximately 100 CEOs in a wide variety of industries, details Chief Executives' attitudes and expectations. It is distributed electronically in .pdf format. The survey is administered by The Conference Board, where CEOs are presented with a series of 3 questions.

  • Larry Ellison

    Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle, the software company that created the first commercially viable relational database. Under his leadership, Oracle grew into the largest supplier of database software and the second-largest supplier of business applications in the world. Despite notable setbacks the company grew steadily until 1992, when its Oracle 7 release swept the market and made Ellison a billionaire.

  • Mark Zuckerberg

    Mark Zuckerberg is a self-taught computer programmer and the co-founder, chair, and CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook). According to Forbes, as of December 2020, Zuckerberg's net worth was about $100 billion. Meta reported 2.74 billion monthly active users in the third quarter of 2020, making it the biggest social network in the world.

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  1. Financial Times. "Cascade Investment, Bill Gates’ wealth manager." https://www.ft.com/content/ce87f48a-7208-11e5-9b9e-690fdae72044