The road to the top rarely runs in a straight line, but there are less circuitous routes to becoming CEO. According to one of the largest ongoing studies analyzing every CEO succession in the S&P 500 since 2000, there are four feeder roles: COOs, divisional CEOs, CFOs, and 'leapfrog' leaders promoted from below the C-suite. But a separate 10-year study called the CEO Genome Project suggests that the fastest climbers ' 'sprinters' who reached the CEO seat well ahead of the 24-year average ' didn't get there by climbing the corporate ladder to the top. They got there through bold, often unconventional career moves, such as taking on a failing division or building something from scratch. Product management doesn't appear in the CEO-pathway research, likely because none of the major studies breaks the role out as a separate category. It's a relatively newer function, and it tends to get folded into general management or engineering in career datasets. But once you look at what the job...
learn more
