CEOs and advanced degrees

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.

 

Don't forget the all important "who you know"

 

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

 

My first Chief of Police had a degree in Landscape Architecture.

 

Walter Wriston -

This was one smart dude. An impressive speaker and a very effective and innovative CEO.