What does it take to become the CEO of one of the 100 largest U.S. firms? More specifically, where do they come from, and does the undergraduate alma mater matter?
To provide insight on these questions, I looked into specific attributes of the career paths of F100 company CEOs: undergraduate schools, undergraduate degrees, graduate schools, graduate degrees, educational majors, functional emphasis, the number of years at their current company (at which they are CEO), and the companies that produce more CEOs. The study is based on data pulled for 2018 (for more insight on the methodology, see below). In an earlier article, I shared data on the importance of experience (see results from the study here) at the focal firm. In this article, I look at the undergraduate schools of the F100 CEOs.
For parents and students who believe getting into an Ivy League school is a requirement for success, the educational paths of the F100 CEOs suggest otherwise. Of the F100 CEOs who obtained an undergraduate degree (yes, some did not complete college), a dominant 89% graduated from non-Ivy League schools with only 11% having attended an Ivy League school. Forty-seven percent of the F100 graduates came from state schools (e.g., University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, etc.) while 53% came from other schools.
The undergraduate institutions most commonly attended by the F100 were Texas A&M University and the University of Michigan. Other non-Ivy League, non-state schools attended include Illinois Wesleyan University (State Farm CEO), Clark University (Metlife CEO), Grove City College (DowDuPont CEO), St. Bonaventure University (Delta Airlines CEOs), Pepperdine University (RiteAid CEO), Manhattan College (AMEX CEO), West Point (JNJ CEO), and international schools such as University of Melbourne (Morgan Stanley CEO).
Interestingly, among those at the very top of the list (the top 10), only one (Bezos) graduated from an Ivy League school, while 80% hold undergraduate degrees from public institutions. In addition, Bezos is the only founder/CEO, suggesting that a potential benefit of an Ivy League or private institution education might be access to capital and other resources needed to help entrepreneurially-oriented students get started. Conversely, the path to helm a large firm founded by somebody else appears not to require a private or Ivy League education. This should be good news for parents and students concerned about the cost of education.
In the next article, I will explore the graduate schools that the F100 CEOs come from. The results are strikingly different from the undergraduate data.
For additional insight on Fortune 100 CEO career paths, see the following: the undergraduate institutions they attended, the graduate schools they attended, the number of companies they have worked for, the early-career firms at which they worked, the undergraduate degrees they earned, and the early-career functions in which they chose to work.
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For more insight on the career paths of Fortune 100 CEOs, see here.
Methodology: To identify CEO information, a number of information sources were used: 1) Bloomberg, 2) Company websites, 3) Company proxy statements, 4) press releases, 5) Wikipedia, among others. While most of the information was accessible, there were 10 occasions where the data was unavailable or conflicted across resources. In such cases, the CEO was excluded from the total CEO count in the statistic calculated if unavailable/inconsistent. Additionally, some firms were acquired and the CEO transitioned to the acquiring firm. In such cases, the CEO’s tenure at the current firm was calculated starting at the time of the merger/acquisition. The CEOs were identified in September 2018 and the research was conducted in winter 2018/2019. A special thanks to Wilkerson Anthony, an outstanding research assistant with whom I worked from 2014-2019, who helped source and code the information. Also, thanks to Tyla Gallegos who created the data images.
