Who Gets Promoted to the C-Suite—and How That Has Changed Over the Decades

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.”

From a young age, Jeff Goldblum had an eye for clothes. Growing up in Pittsburgh, he wanted glasses like John Lennon’s and turtlenecks like the Rat Pack’s.

As a member of New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse studying under the legendary Sanford Meisner, he scoured vintage shops for Russian-style overcoats and aviator hats.

After his success in blockbusters like “Jurassic Park” and “Independence Day,” he went through a Japanese-denim phase and loved what he calls “I’ve-been-working-on-the-railroad-type vests.”

“I’ve swung wildly, and I’ve had a lot of bad ideas,” Goldblum said of his style on a recent Zoom.

The 73-year-old wore a bespoke green shirt from Anto, a shirtmaker based near his Los Angeles home.

On his feet were light-green socks, and handmade shoes from Florence, where he lives part-time with his wife, Emilie Livingston, and their two sons.

This month, he reprises his role as the Wizard of Oz in “Wicked: For Good,” the second installment of the film adaptation of the musical juggernaut. He insisted he’s not contracted by Universal Studios to only wear green on the press tour.

In the last decade the world has paid more attention to the actor’s off-screen style, which has evolved since he began working with stylist Andrew Vottero around 2014.

A silver-haired fixture on best-dressed lists, Goldblum often finishes his zany outfits with chunky black specs. He has collaborated with glasses label Jacques Marie Mage and formed a close relationship with Prada , walking its runway and appearing in a 2022 brand campaign.

Here, Goldblum, who regularly performs with his jazz band the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, talks cashmere, vegan Bolognese and handshakes.

Studying with Sandy Meisner was: a portal into my more-intense interest in clothing. Everything could be a key to finding a character, behavior and discovering who you are in the story – (for example) how the shoe felt and how it made you walk.

You don’t really see: a 1970s-style long shirt collar in stores. I had this green shirt I’m wearing made at Anto in Los Angeles. I have them in a bunch of flavors, including some with Western buttons. I’m thinking about getting one in orange.

I just read: James Kaplan’s two-part biography of Frank Sinatra, whose favorite colour was orange. I’ve always liked orange.

I like: that Marie Kondo book “Tidying Up.” In my youth, my family left me alone one day in the garage. It seemed messy to me. I started to throw everything away. I was sweating under my arms with excitement. I got a big kick out of it.

My kids: like to wear my band merchandise. They sometimes help me dress. I say, “Hey, pick out what I’m going to wear.”

I’ve had to get cozy with one or two: leather jackets for parts like Ian Malcolm in “Jurassic Park.” I have a Saint Laurent motorcycle jacket that I wore the other day that’s kind of tight. I like it a lot.

I probably wouldn’t want to wear: real fur. I’ve stopped eating animals except fish. It’s part health-wise from my nutritionist and part my own feeling about it.

My favourite meal is at: Craig’s in West Hollywood. My wife and I share a chopped salad, minus the cheese, to start. They have a spaghetti squash primavera with broccoli and a spicy tomato sauce. I get it with shrimp or vegan Bolognese.

I’ve always been hypersensitive to: certain fabrics, such as wool. I’ve recently accepted—what’s that wool called?—cashmere. I don’t like things that itch. And I don’t like tags in the back of my shirt. I use a professional seam ripper to cut out tags.

What drives me crazy are: printing machines and my phone, especially how it breaks down so often. I had to deal with that this morning.

My feet must be: comfy cozy. My wife, a ballet dancer, says we’re not really working unless our feet are bleeding. I can’t accept that. I really like these handmade shoes I had made in Florence. They’re the most comfortable ever.

Florence is: a jewel box of a city. I’ve found the people delightful and the quality of life great. There are so many artisans. My favourite hat is one I purchased at the Borsalino store. I don’t know any Italian. Just a word here or there.

I don’t want to get sick so I prefer: fist bumping to a handshake. My knuckles have hurt from a too-hard fist bump. So let’s fist bump gently. Let’s just fist touch.

I have to organise my: sock drawer. It’s in the research and development stage. I’m very into socks of one kind or another. I like to experiment with a colour, which is why I have a light green pair on now. For tight shoes, I like (thin) Pantherella socks . I like a shorter sock, too. Sometimes I make it look like it’s falling down.

For a while I had an aesthetic allergy to: cobalt blue. You’d see it on a lady’s blouse sometimes, and I would go, “That hurts! It’s too bright.” But yesterday, after going to the Dodgers game with my kids, I put on a Dodgers blue cobalt sock, and I was very happy. So I’m nothing if not changeable.

I love: pockets. I recently got a minty green chore coat by the Row that I really like. Its flap pockets are deep enough that things aren’t going to fall out. I’d never even heard the term “chore coat.” It carries my wallet, keys, maybe a Kleenex, a lozenge, a little pillbox with an aspirin and some hand sanitizer.

I never used: sunscreen. But my wife has got me using Sarah Chapman sunscreen , sometimes even tinted. I’ll use a Joanna Vargas serum of some kind. I’m not sure what it’s doing, but I put it on at night. I imitate Boris Karloff (in the “Frankenstein” films) and I make a joke with Emilie that I’m going to my laboratory to work on my new longevity theorem.

My acid-reflux man said: “Take care of your vocal cords.” So I’m off caffeine. I’ll have a Ryze mushroom coffee in the morning—a scoop with hot water and oat milk. Sometimes the kids will make me a decaf cappuccino with oat milk and a sprinkling of chocolate powder, and that is too delightful.

For many decades: I’ve been totally on the natch. I’ll have a sip of red wine if Emilie says it’s really fantastic, but I don’t want to get loopy.

I get the usual: seven or eight hours of sleep. I stopped wearing my Oura ring. I’d be in bed for 8 hours and it would go, “No, Jeff, let’s call it 5½ hours that you got.” It used to say, “You’re somewhat ready for the day,” and I’d say, “Go to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.” I threw the darn thing away. I go with how I feel.

When I wake up: I go through the little vestige of transcendental meditation I learned decades ago. I crack my bones and do this stretching routine that ends with my taking a tennis racket and going through the motion of a backhand, forehand and serve. Then I take a Centrum for Men multivitamin, play my piano and work out in our gym.

Early on I was: a lanky guy. Then I started lifting weights. I wanted to steer some of those roles that were a little nerdy—even those scientist parts—in a cooler direction.

Am I: nerdy or cool? Well, these days, according to some circles, the two have overlapped. At this point, who knows?

Who Gets Promoted to the C-Suite—and How That Has Changed Over the Decades

Among our findings: The average age of top executives started falling after 1980. But now it’s higher than it was 40 years ago.

The 73-year-old star of ‘Wicked: For Good’ gets cameras flashing with his kooky off-screen style. Here, he discusses his morning stretch routine, a work-in-progress sock drawer and his antagonism toward fitness rings.