This year, the University of Wisconsin joins Harvard as the most common university attended by S&P 500 CEOs. Until now, Harvard has held the lead among CEOs studied since 1998. 3% of the S&P 500 CEOs received their undergraduate degrees from Harvard and 3% from the University of Wisconsin. The percentage of CEOs who have earned an MBA has remained constant over the past few years, at 38%. 29% have earned an advanced degree other than an MBA(!), and 11% of the CEOs studied have earned a law degree. http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/Statistical_Snapshot_of_Leading_CEOs_relB3.pdf#nameddest=GAedu
I'm a COO, not a CEO, with an MBA and ACM from Boston College and DBA from California Pacific University. I believe those credentials have been very helpful to me in my career--despite the fact that they are not from Harvard or University of Wisconsin.
It was interesting to note that the most common degrees for CEOs were: - Business Admin (naturally) - Engineering (not completely unexpected) - Liberal Arts (very unexpected)
I used to work at Nextel and the CEO their only received a Bachelors in English Lit. It's what you do with what you have that counts.
My CEO, who heads up a large multi-specialty medical clinic, has a MHA from the University of Michigan.
Our CEO has MBA from Columbia University & CIO is a PhD in Business Administration from the same school.
The former CEO of my company (we're now an affiliate of a larger company) had a Bachelor's degree in Physical Education! - Tom
Walter Wriston - This was one smart dude. An impressive speaker and a very effective and innovative CEO.