Here’s the face of the new C-suite: older, with broader industry experience and increasingly female.

These are some of the most surprising findings my colleagues and I have uncovered about how C-suite leaders have changed over time. My co-researchers—Rocio Bonet and Monika Hamori—and I have been tracking the attributes of the leaders of the world’s biggest corporations, the Fortune 100, since 1980, when many of the key forces shaping business today began.

The findings, in some cases, seem to be at odds with each other. That is because many factors are pulling the business world in different directions. For instance, executives change jobs a lot more than in the past and don’t stick with one employer or industry for their entire careers. On the other hand, C-suite executives do less job hopping later in their careers after moving around a lot early on. In many ways, there is more stability in the corporate world now than we would ever imagine from the tales of intrigue within individual executive suites.

Here is a closer look at our key findings

• The youth movement is over. Our study—which will appear in the California Management Review—found that C-suite executives are getting older. It’s a reversal of a long trend: Executives were getting younger after 1980—with the average age falling six years to 51 in 2001—but now the top leaders are back to where they were in 1980: 57 years old on average.
• Executives are doing more job hopping. The number of different companies where executives worked, including their current job, rose each decade—to 3.3 in 2021 from 2.2 in 1980, a 50% rise. Likewise, the number of years the executives worked elsewhere before joining their current company jumped by a third, to 15 years, over that same period. As a result, more outsiders are being hired directly into executive roles. In 1980, 9% of C-suite executives fit that bill. In 2021, 26% did.
• Executives are less likely to be lifers. The percentage of executives who spent their whole careers at one company dropped in every period in our data, especially between 2011 and 2021. Now just under 20% of executives are lifers, less than half the level in 1980 and about the same as in 1900. There is a big exception to that finding, though: legacy companies. These 17 companies—which have been in the Fortune 100 since 1980—have more than twice the percentage of lifers as the others.
• Eventually, executives do settle down. While executives may move around more early in their careers, when they do settle on a job, they stay there longer. Average tenure in executive roles is now back up to where it was in 1980, close to four years, after falling to two years in 2001. This may have to do with tech companies: As the industry has matured, it has become more stable. (At legacy companies, though, average tenure has dipped to three years from four.)
• They have broader experience. Executives used to get training in-house in various aspects of the business: operations, finance, logistics and so forth. It was a way for companies to train potential leaders from within, especially important since there weren’t a lot of outside hires for executive roles. Now companies are seeking people from outside who have experience in different niches, and putting them in roles that fill those niches. In 1980, the average top executive had worked in 1.4 different industries. Now that figure is 2.3.
• Legacy companies aren’t exempt from big changes. The C-suite at legacy companies looks more traditional—that is, more like 1980—than it does at other companies. Even so, these older corporations have seen some big changes.
  First off, let’s look at the traditional side. Not only do legacy C-suites have a higher percentage of lifers, these executives get more training in-house and have less experience in other industries. At the same time, though, legacy executives have been affected by some trends that make them look different than in 1980. The executives have less tenure, as we have seen, and outsiders hired directly into executive roles went to 18% in 2021 from 1% in 1980.
• More executives come from finance. Financial markets and investor interests took on a greater role after the 1980s, and that change is reflected in the proportion of executives with a finance background: The figure has been above 30% since 2001, up from 19% in 1980.
• More executives have law degrees. The proportion of executives with a law degree has risen, going to 17% in 2001 from 11% in 1980, and staying near that higher level in 2021. This may be a response to increased corporate regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank that drive the need for more legal expertise in the C-suite.
• Business degrees aren’t as prevalent as you would think. For years, there was huge growth in M.B.A. graduates in the overall population—63% from 2001 to 2011. But the growth rate of M.B.A.s in Fortune 100 C-suites was considerably lower: just 6%. The period from 2011 to 2021 had even less upward movement. The number of M.B.A.s in the C-suite rose by just 4% over those years, as M.B.A. graduates in general rose by 8% during that time.
• Ivies are still influential. Even as the growth rate of M.B.A.s goes down overall in the C-suite, the dominance of graduates from Ivy League business schools in the executive ranks remains strong. Ivy League M.B.A. programs represent less than 1% of all such programs in the U.S. Meanwhile, as of 2021, 35% of C-suite executives had M.B.A.s, and 23% of those got the degree in the Ivy League. That’s in the same ballpark as 2001, when 30% of C-Suite executives had M.B.A.s, and 20% of those were from Ivies.
  A couple of factors may be at play: These top jobs have become more attractive for elite graduates as executive pay has soared—and more outside hiring by companies has made it possible for M.B.A.s to make lateral moves that offer a chance at the C-suite. Previously, graduates of those elite programs disproportionately moved into higher-paying investment careers.
• Women are landing more executive jobs. The proportion of women in Fortune 100 top executive ranks rose from roughly zero in 1980 to 12% in 2001 and 18% in 2011, by about the same percentage as the proportion of women in all management jobs. After that, the proportion of women in these top executive ranks rose to 28% of jobs in 2021—while women executives in the overall ranks of management rose to just 18% of jobs from 17%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This indicates that it did not take an increase in the pipeline of women managers to add more to the executive suite.
• Women are also advancing quicker than men. Women executives got to executive jobs faster than their male counterparts—four years faster into their careers in 2001, slowing to 1.5 years faster in 2021.
• Foreign-born executives have also made gains. Something similar happened with executives from outside the U.S. Until this past decade, the percentage of foreign-born people in top executive ranks—2% in 1980, for instance—had lagged behind the proportion of foreign-born people in the U.S. as a whole. Now, foreign-born people make up 15% of top executive ranks—larger than their proportion in the overall population. This increase, though, doesn’t seem to be associated with any greater globalization of top corporations: Instead, it may reflect an increase in foreign-born students in elite U.S. postgraduate programs.

Peter Cappelli is a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “Our Least Important Asset: Why the Relentless Focus on Finance and Accounting is Bad for Business and Employees.”

For a master class in power networking, it’s tough to beat the one taking place in the Swiss Alps this week.

The annual World Economic Forum brings the planet’s power brokers together for morning-to-past-midnight meetings over coffee, cocktails and fondue. For the thousands of CEOs, billionaires, intellectuals and world leaders descending on Davos, the setting is unrivalled in its potential to spark relationships, dealmaking and big ideas for the year ahead. After all, there are few other places where you can run into Al Gore at the hotel bar and wait next to Bill Gates to pass through the metal detectors.

Maximising all that powerful proximity and turning it into actual connections takes skill, chutzpah and the ability to think on your feet. What to do if you spot Sting in the elevator? How to know whether a tête-à-tête merits more than a minute of your time? And how do you divine someone’s importance without peering at the badge dangling at their midsection?

The tricks of Davos movers and shakers can apply to any business gathering or cocktail party, regardless of your VIP status. Here’s how they do it.

Names and spaces

For Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff, getting the most out of the high-powered gathering often comes down to location—in this case, the top of a staircase in the Davos Congress Center, the main hub of the event.

The Davos regular said he plans to spend an hour each day of the forum perched there or in an adjacent hallway. Why? In a single hour—amid a packed calendar of meetings, lunches, dinners and other engagements—he might see 100 people he would otherwise not encounter all year.

“The amount of serendipity that happens is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” said Benioff, who has attended the forum for two decades and hosts parties and gatherings that people vie all week to get into. “It’s an incredible thing.”

Benioff has a hack for dealing with a common conundrum in Davos and beyond—forgetting your conversation partner’s name. The Salesforce chief said he sometimes takes photos of their badges if he isn’t able to take notes. If he exchanges contact information with someone, he gives his cellphone number or email and recommends they text, email or tweet at him.

“I’m generous with my contact information,” he said. (At least one reporter can attest to that.)

Or, simply ask the person to repeat their name, said Alisa Cohn, an executive coach and author attending her third Davos. She phrases the question with a touch of humour, asking: “‘Listen, this has been a great conversation, and I’ve already forgotten your name. Can you remind me?’”

Few people respond poorly, she said. “The truth is, they will ask you the same question because they forgot your name, too.”

Big deal, or big whoop?

Seated next to an unfamiliar guest at a dinner or lunch, several CEOs said they weren’t above stealth under-the-table googling, surreptitiously reading up on their Davos dining companions to make better conversation or to understand what, exactly, it is that they do.

When introducing herself to someone new, Cohn gives people conversational “hooks” to latch on to. For her, that means explaining she is also an angel investor, based in New York, and a fitness fanatic with a love of kettlebells. The icebreaker often spurs people to detail their own fitness routines.

True Davos experts know how to escape a long, dull or—horrors!—low-status conversation partner. Nick Studer, head of consulting firm Oliver Wyman Group and a longtime Davos attendee, believes there is value in all sorts of conversations. But he has perfected the art of extraction with a favourite line: “Anyways, it’s obviously fantastic [chatting]. I mustn’t keep you from your guests.”

Most people follow his lead, he said, “as long as you wrap it up appropriately and politely.”

No ‘Windexing’

One big Davos no-no is what the finance executive Anthony Scaramucci has come to describe as “Windexing.”

Say you are chatting with someone interesting, but notice out of the corner of your eye that the British prime minister or a well-known billionaire-entrepreneur walks into a room. You might suddenly feel the urge to move on, and look past the person you are talking to “like he’s a sheet of glass,” Scaramucci said. “Don’t be that person.”

Instead, apologise for needing to end the conversation, he said, and offer to circle back if there is time.

Scaramucci, founder of the hedge-fund investment firm SkyBridge Capital and, very briefly, communications director for the Trump administration, started jetting to Davos in 2007.

He hosts a popular and well-attended wine night there each year. Over time, he has learned a tactic for getting into a must-attend party—even when he isn’t invited.

“I crash every single party that I can possibly crash,” Scaramucci said.

Several years ago, at a party held by a Russian oligarch, a security guard stopped Scaramucci because he wasn’t on the list. Scaramucci says he didn’t blink. Instead, he disarmed.

“I said, ‘I know I’m not on the list. I’m Vince Vaughn from ‘Wedding Crashers,’” he recalled. “Five minutes later, I was eating the caviar and drinking the vodka.”

When Scaramucci spots a mega luminary he is dying to meet, he tries to be authentic. He said he developed a friendship with David Rubenstein, co-founder of the private-equity giant Carlyle Group, by introducing himself in Davos years ago.

“I just walked over to him. I said, ‘Hey, listen, I watched you on TV, I’ve seen your interviews and I’m a great admirer of yours,’” Scaramucci said. “People are incredibly nice. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t want to meet you.”

Tight timing

At major conclaves like Davos, Scaramucci and others said it is important to realise you can’t do it all. Prioritisation is key.

Denelle Dixon, who runs the nonprofit Stellar Development Foundation, said her organisation sets a theme for the conference so executives can take meetings with government officials and others around that sharp topic. This year, it is blockchain’s role in expanding access to the financial system. (Davos loves a buzzword.) “It allows us to really focus,” she said.

Saying no is essential. Salesforce’s Benioff and his team usually meet with roughly half of the 600 CEOs attending Davos. But a request for five or 15 minutes of his time is likely to fail if the person isn’t a critical customer or somebody he already knows well.

“It’s not going to get part of my time,” he said. “Maybe it’ll get part of somebody else’s time.”

Up and down the income ladder, people say more money would make them happier. When they actually get it, that isn’t always the case.

Some people who have gotten big raises recently say the money hasn’t changed their day-to-day life or hasn’t provided them as much joy as the things in their life that have nothing to do with money. Others were hoping for a bigger raise or felt conflicted about making more money.

Jess Tapia, a 28-year-old accountant in Hoffman Estates, Ill., thought for years that $90,000 was a salary that would make her happy. When a raise of about $20,000 pushed her pay to that level last February, it did—at first.

To celebrate, Tapia booked a vacation to Germany the next month. The good vibes soon wore off.

“By the time I came back from that trip, it kind of fell flat for me because it was just back to normal, back to the routine,” she said.

The past few years have been good ones for workers seeking higher pay. Median year-over-year wage growth hit a recent peak of 6.7% in summer 2022, after mostly staying below 4% for more than a decade before 2021, according to the Atlanta Federal Reserve. Many of those who switched jobs, or threatened to, made substantial salary gains.

And people with higher incomes do tend to be happier, many studies show. Research looking at lotteries and random cash giveaways indicates that additional money can make people happier for months or even years.

But moving up the income scale, it takes more money to generate the same good feelings, said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an economics professor at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford who studies well-being. The proportion of the increase matters.

“If an employer moves somebody from $15,000 to $30,000, that will have an impact on people’s life satisfaction that is the equivalent of them moving somebody from, say, $60,000 to $120,000,” De Neve said.

More is more

A pay increase that takes someone from financially stressed to financially stable often leads to more happiness. At the low end of the earnings spectrum, a higher income is associated more with squashing negative feelings than producing positive ones, according to a 2021 paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Randeep Chauhan, a 30-year-old nurse in Ferndale, Wash., went from making about $45,000 in 2021 to $90,000 in 2022 after completing a one-year nursing program.

“Doubling my income didn’t double my happiness, but it came close,” he said.

For Chauhan, much of the happiness boost came from being able to stop worrying about being able to cover his family’s monthly bills. He said his blood pressure dropped to a healthy level after his change in pay, which he attributes largely to the drop-off in financial stress.

If you get a raise, don’t just spend it, said Neela Hummel, a financial planner and the co-CEO of Abacus Wealth Partners.

“The worst thing that can happen with a raise is that that money gets immediately folded into cash flow and a client doesn’t even notice it,” she said.

Many people also jump ahead to how nice a car or how big a house they could afford with a new paycheck. Instead, Hummel advises, take the raise as an opportunity to up your savings or pay down debt.

Chauhan said he has avoided lifestyle creep, putting money toward retirement savings and student loans instead of buying a new computer or phone. “There’s a weird rush in making money and not spending it,” he said.

Austin Benacquisto’s pay has rocketed upward over the past few years. The 29-year-old commercial debt broker in Atlanta made roughly $60,000 in 2019, $110,000 in 2020, $180,000 in 2021 and $325,000 in 2022, including bonuses.

His steps up to $110,000 and $180,000 felt better than the one up to $325,000, he said.

“The last 50,000 I made in 2022 just was for stuff in my house that I wanted,” he said.

Benacquisto’s pay fell to about $200,000 last year as his industry slowed down. The drop felt worse than the recent increases felt good, he said.

“This being the first decrease, it definitely stings,” he said.

The paycheck next door

People’s happiness with their pay is strongly tied to how it compares with the pay of others around them, say researchers who study compensation. Sometimes, those comparisons rankle.

A 30% raise made Ryan Powell less happy at work.

Powell, a 38-year-old finance director for a manufacturer in western North Carolina, received that pay bump in 2022. He had been hoping for more based on the salary information he had heard from recruiters, peers in the industry and his M.B.A. cohort.

The initial thrill of the raise lasted about three months, he said.

“The further I got into it, the more I was realising that I was anchored to the higher number,” he said.

Executives are more likely to leave their companies if their pay is low compared with other top bosses, according to a 2017 study in the journal Human Resource Management.

Comparisons matter closer to home, too. Living in an area where people tend to make more money than you is linked to being less happy, according to a 2005 paper in The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

One reason that Tapia, the accountant in Illinois, isn’t happier after her raises is that she feels guilt about making more money than her parents ever did. Her dad works in construction and landscaping.

“I work from home mostly, I’m comfortable and I’m always indoors. During summertime, he’s sometimes outside working 10 hours in 100-degree weather,” she said.

Tapia recently got another raise of roughly $10,000. She again booked a vacation to Europe but is hoping to extend her joy further this time.

“I’m starting to feel like this is going to plateau, so let me try and make the feeling last a little longer with this trip,” she said.