We found 57 routes into the C-suite. If you're a problem-fixer, step right up.
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We found 57 routes into the C-suite. If you're a problem-fixer, step right up.

A great job title. Excellent pay and benefits. Direct access to your chief executive. And a guaranteed seat at the table where the big decisions are made.

We’re talking about the C-suite, the handful of top leadership positions where the formal title begins with “chief.” For anyone plotting a career at a big company, vaulting into this elite group of leaders can be the triumph of a lifetime.

But how do you get there? Fresh analysis by LinkedIn’s Economic Graph team provides fascinating clues. Data scientists and economists looked at U.S. hiring patterns for 57 different C-suite jobs, ranging from long-time standards such as chief financial officer to catchy new titles such as chief people officer. Here are some of the notable findings:

  • Chief growth officer is gaining popularity faster than any other title. Companies in mature industries – such as cereal-maker Kellogg or battery maker Energizer Holdings – now count on chief growth officers to get those revenue curves climbing higher again. Software companies are in a hurry to hire CGOs, too. Since 2015, LinkedIn data shows, hiring of chief growth officers in the United States has climbed at a compound annual growth rate of 42% a year.
  • Many industries are expanding the C-suite in hopes of addressing their most chronic operating challenges. Print publishers and television-station operators are in a hurry to hire chief digital officers. Non-profits are scrambling to add chief development officers (who focus on fund-raising.) That’s creating big opportunities for specialized problem-solvers, whose career horizons needn’t stop at being a vice president anymore. If you’re working in a hot-spot area, a C-suite title is in reach.
  •  Everyone wants chief people officers, with software and tech companies leading the way. The overall hiring growth rate for CPO jobs tops 32% a year. Don’t think of this new title as merely a fancy name for traditional human-resource functions. CPOs enjoy wider room to uproot toxic cultures, work directly with the CEO to define key goals, and even to advise on acquisitions.
  • In general, the C-suite is getting bigger. Nearly half the job titles that LinkedIn tracks are seeing annual hiring growth of more than 10%. Only four are seeing a decline in hiring rates – mostly as old-fashioned technical and financial titles give way to snappier new ones. 

For anyone with C-suite ambitions, there are four main ways of getting to the top, says Cassandra Frangos, a leadership adviser at Spencer Stuart and author of “Crack the C-Suite Code.”

The most traditional path is to inch one’s way up the ladder at a leading employer. It’s faster – but riskier -- to leap from company to company, gaining the attention of recruiters handling hard-to-fill positions. Being a founder saves all these headaches; you’re helping to run the show from the start. And in rare cases, gifted leaders can skip steps on the way up, reaching the C-suite unexpectedly quickly, because they’re that good.

Companies that might have had five executives in the C-suite a decade ago now may have 10 or more, Frangos notes. Among big, U.S.-based enterprises, Accenture has eight leaders with CxO titles and another 11 group chief executives. Walmart’s global and U.S. leadership team includes at least 16 people with CxO titles.

The C-suite isn’t quite as big in other countries, but it’s on a growth curve, too. In the UK, Tesco has six CxO executives and five more segment CEOs. In Canada, Scotiabank's C-suite is eight persons deep. In Australia, seven BHP executives have “chief” and “officer” in their titles.

Some of the C-suite’s expansion reflects the rise of specialties such as data, privacy and diversity, which have gained importance to the point that CEOs want direct contact with those areas. Also in the mix is that way that “super-titles” like chief growth officer combine multiple old-school specialties (such as sales, marketing and strategy) in an effort to get a company making faster headway in a complex area.

Once a new C-suite title catches on, it can spread throughout the U.S. economy in a hurry. Laszlo Bock became Google’s first chief of people operations about a decade ago, after making the argument to his bosses that the company would benefit from a more ambitious, data-driven approach to all sorts of talent-related topics, beyond what a traditional HR function could provide.

“Dozens if not hundreds” of other companies peeked into Google’s approach to see if they ought to be trying something similar, Bock recalls. “I hope many do reverse engineer it! Companies that get this right perform better and have happier people.”

Bock, who now runs his own HR startup, Humu, says he benefited from having a direct line into Google’s top leaders at the time, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as then-CEO Eric Schmidt. That made it easier for Bock to brief them on bold ideas, and to transcend what might have been a narrower definition of his job if he had been reporting to the chief legal or finance officer, as is common for many HR functions.

Dasha Maggio, a partner at Felicis Ventures, says she's seeing startups as small as 25 to 30 employees begin the hunt for a chief people officer. By the time companies reach 100 employees or more, it's a standard requirement. "The key elements of the job depend on the leadership team," Maggio observes. But there's a constant desire to make sure that hiring, training, retention, compensation and more are all well connected to business goals.

Among the executives leading the next wave of chief people officers is Colleen McCreary, chief people officer at San Francisco-based Credit Karma. It’s her fourth time as a tech company CPO; she’s previously held the same role at Zynga, Climate Corp and Vevo. In each case, she says, "it's a partnership with the CEO."

This data is part of LinkedIn's Emerging Jobs Report. Look out next week for more about the jobs that are growing now.

(LinkedIn data scientists Jenny Ying, Michael Lombard and Brian Xu contributed to this article.)

David Hubbard

Account Manager @ Premier Inc. | MBA, Pharmacy Supply Chain

4y

Z xbox ' ;...

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It is delightful that tech and others are looking at Chief People Officer role - and watching the current travails of Google, the limits of Humu and a few chats with line HR at Google and other big tech there is a fear that data is used as a replacement for values and vision. With everyone and their dog/cat selling "purpose" as an upgrade to mission/vision - it is vital for a less jargony valuing of people and nature - unfortunately lacking or actively not desired often (e.g. no more all hands, continual poor treatment of contractors)

Andy Gibbs

Independent Management Consultant and Interim Director

4y

There's a 58th ------ having ambitions that exceed your abilities. This could well be the most common route.

Elizabeth Godo

Head of Communications at Palladium

4y

Interesting study! We've published a bit of an exploration as to why Chief Sustainability Officer didn't make the list when it was growing so quickly at one time:  https://thepalladiumgroup.com/news/Chief-Sustainability-Officer-Missing-from-New-List-of-Top-C-Suite-Titles 

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Saif Khan Ghauri FCMA CGMA

Finance Director Numitas, experienced International Accountant and Business Partner...

4y

Excellent!!! Mapping from history to why to current and a better configuration going forward....

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